Gas Act 1965

17 Accidents.

(1) If—

(a) there is a leakage of gas from an underground gas storage, or from the boreholes connected with an underground gas storage, or

(b) some other event occurs which is of a kind which the Minister has by notice served on the gas authority specified for the purposes of this section,

notice of the event, in such form and accompanied by such particulars as may be specified by the Minister, shall forthwith be given by the gas authority to the Minister ; and a gas authority failing to comply with this subsection shall be guilty of an offence under this Part of this Act.

(2) The Minister may, where he thinks it expedient so to do, direct an inquiry to be held into any event notice of which is to be given under the foregoing subsection, or any other event connected with the underground gas storage.

The inquiry shall be held in public and in accordance with the provisions of Schedule 5 to this Act.

(3) The Minister may, whether or not he proposes to hold an inquiry in public under the last foregoing subsection into any event connected with an underground gas storage, appoint one of his officers or some other competent person to investigate the event and to make a special report with respect to it, and the Minister may cause any such report to be made public at such time and in such manner as he thinks fit.

(4) Where, in the case of an event in Scotland that causes the death of a person, the Minister directs an inquiry to be held in public under this section, no inquiry with regard to that death shall, unless the Lord Advocate otherwise directs, be held in pursuance of the [1895 c. 36.] Fatal Accidents Inquiry (Scotland) Act 1895.

(5) It shall be the duty of the gas authority to make arrangements—

(a) for every police force, fire authority, river authority, local water authority, river purification authority and statutory water undertakers who appear to them to be authorities on whom duties will or may fall, or who will or may have to take precautionary or preventive action, in any event within paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1) of this section, and

(b) for such other bodies as the Minister may specify by notice given to the gas authority, being bodies appearing to him to have duties to discharge in any such event,

to be notified immediately on the occurrence of any such event; and the gas authority shall provide those authorities and bodies with such plans, maps and other information as they may reasonably require in order to enable them to carry out those duties.

A gas authority failing to comply with this subsection shall be guilty of an offence under this Part of this Act.

(6) A gas authority guilty of an offence under this Part of this Act by virtue of this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds.