Infrastructure Act 2015

44 Further provision about the right of use

(1) The ways in which the right of use may be exercised include—

(a) drilling, boring, fracturing or otherwise altering deep-level land;

(b) installing infrastructure in deep-level land;

(c) keeping, using or removing any infrastructure installed in deep-level land;

(d) passing any substance through, or putting any substance into, deep-level land or infrastructure installed in deep-level land;

(e) keeping, using or removing any substance put into deep-level land or into infrastructure installed in deep-level land.

(2) The purposes for which the right of use may be exercised include—

(a) searching for petroleum or deep geothermal energy;

(b) assessing the feasibility of exploiting petroleum or deep geothermal energy;

(c) preparing for exploiting petroleum or deep geothermal energy;

(d) decommissioning, and other activity which falls to be continued or undertaken, in consequence of activities undertaken for the purposes of exploiting petroleum or deep geothermal energy.

(3) The right of use includes the right to leave deep-level land in a different condition from the condition it was in before an exercise of the right of use (including by leaving any infrastructure or substance in the land).

(4) The right of use—

(a) does not give a person (“R”) any power which is greater than, or different from, the power which R would have had if the right had been granted by a person legally entitled to grant it; and

(b) does not relieve a person (“R”) from any obligation or liability to which R would have been subject if the right had been granted by a person legally entitled to grant it.

(5) A person (“L”) who owns land (the “relevant land”) is not liable, as the owner of that land, in tort for any loss or damage which is attributable to the exercise, or proposed exercise, of the right of use by another person (whether in relation to the relevant land or any other land).

(6) For that purpose, loss or damage is not attributable to the exercise, or proposed exercise, of the right of use (in particular) if, or to the extent that, the loss or damage is attributable to a deliberate omission by L.

(7) There is a “deliberate omission by L” if L, as owner of the relevant land, decides—

(a) not to do an act, or

(b) not to allow another person to do an act,

and the circumstances at the time of that decision were such that L would not have had to bear any of the costs incurred (whether by L or any other person) in doing or allowing the act.

(8) Section 43 and this section bind the Crown.