Water Act 1989

42 Duty to make connections to water mains

(1) This section applies where the owner or occupier of any premises which are situated in the area of a water undertaker and are premises which consist in the whole or any part of a building or premises on which any person is proposing to erect any building or part of a building serves a notice on the undertaker which—

(a) requires the undertaker, for the purpose of providing a supply of water for domestic purposes to that building or part, to connect a service pipe to those premises with one of the undertaker’s water mains; and

(b) is accompanied or supplemented by all such information as the undertaker may reasonably require and, if it has effect so that a requirement is imposed on the undertaker by virtue of subsection (3)(c) below, sets out the matters that have given rise to the imposition of that requirement;

and this section applies where a notice has been served for the purposes of this section whether or not the service pipe to which the notice relates has been laid when the notice is served.

(2) Subject to the following provisions of this section and to section 44 below, it shall be the duty of a water undertaker on whom a notice is served for the purposes of this section, at the expense of the person serving the notice, to make the required connection if—

(a) the main with which the service pipe is required to be connected is neither a trunk main nor a water main which is or is to be used solely for the purpose of supplying water otherwise than for domestic purposes; and

(b) such conditions as the undertaker may have imposed under section 43 below have been satisfied.

(3) Where a water undertaker is required to make a connection under subsection (2) above, it shall be the duty of the undertaker, at the expense of the person serving the notice, to carry out such of the following works as need to be carried out before the connection in question can be made, that is to say—

(a) to lay so much of the service pipe as it is necessary, for the purpose of making a connection with the main, to lay in a street;

(b) in a case where—

(i) the water main in question is situated in a street;

(ii) the premises consisting in the building or part of a building in question together with any land occupied with it abut on the part of the street where the main is situated; and

(iii) the service pipe to those premises will enter the premises otherwise than through an outer wall of a building abutting on the street and will have a stopcock fitted by the undertaker in the premises,

to lay so much of the service pipe as it is necessary for that purpose to lay in land between the boundary of the street and that stopcock;

(c) in a case where the notice for the purposes of this section is served in compliance with a requirement imposed by a notice served by a local authority under section 57 below, to lay so much of the service pipe as it is necessary for that purpose to lay in land owned or occupied by a person who is certified by that authority—

(i) to have unreasonably refused his consent to the laying of the service pipe; or

(ii) to have sought to make the giving of his consent subject to unreasonable conditions;

and it shall be the duty of any water undertaker making a connection under this section to ensure that a stopcock belonging to the undertaker is fitted to the service pipe which is connected.

(4) Where a water main is alongside a street and within eighteen metres of the middle of that street, subsection (3) above shall have effect in relation to the laying, for the purpose of making a connection with that main, of a service pipe to any premises as if the street included so much of the land between the main and the boundary of the street as is not comprised in those premises or in any land occupied with those premises.

(5) Subject to section 44(6) below, a water undertaker may comply with any duty under this section to lay a service pipe by laying a water main instead; but nothing in this section shall impose any duty on a water undertaker—

(a) to lay a water main where it has no power to lay a service pipe; or

(b) to connect a service pipe to any premises with a service pipe to other premises.

(6) Where a notice under this section is served in respect of any premises before the laying of so much of the service pipe to those premises as falls to be laid otherwise than by the water undertaker under subsection (3) above, the duties of the undertaker under this section shall not arise by virtue of that notice until the person serving the notice, having obtained the necessary consents from the owners and occupiers of any affected land, has, at his own expense, laid so much of the service pipe as it is necessary, for the purpose of making the connection, to lay otherwise than in a street or in land mentioned in subsection (3)(b) or (c) or (4) above.