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Scottish Court of Session Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Scottish Court of Session Decisions >> Police Commissioners of Oban v. Callander and Oban Railway Co. [1885] ScotLR 23_220 (15 December 1885)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/scot/cases/ScotCS/1885/23SLR0220.html
Cite as: [1885] SLR 23_220, [1885] ScotLR 23_220
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SCOTTISH_SLR_Court_of_Session
Page: 220↓
Court of Session Inner House First Division.
v.
Facts:
Section 51 of the Oban Burgh Act 1881 provides that “The annual value of the railways and sidings.. .. stations, depots, and buildings,.. .. belonging to the Callander and Oban Railway Company within the burgh shall, as regards the public water-rate and the police assessment, so far as it is applicable to water, be held to be the nearest aggregate sum of pounds sterling to one-fourth of the annual value thereof entered in the valuation roll.”
The railway company had within the burgh a railway station, part of which consisted of refreshment rooms, which were let to a tenant at a fixed rent. Held that the refreshment rooms were part of the stations and buildings belonging to the railway company, and therefore fell to be assessed for water-rate, in terms of the section above quoted, at one-fourth of the annual value as entered in the valuation roll.
The Callander and Oban Railway Company were the owners of a railway station situated within the burgh of Oban. Part of the station consisted of refreshment rooms, which were let to a tenant at a fixed rent. These refreshment rooms were open to the public, as well as to passengers upon the railway, and there was an entrance from the railway platform, and also from the approach leading from the street to the station. The railway and stations belonging to the company were valued by the Assessor of Railways and Canals, but the refreshment rooms were valued by the assessor for the burgh of Oban, and entered in the valuation roll for the burgb.
By the Oban Burgh Act 1881 (44 and 45 Vict. cap. 178) the police commissioners of the burgh were authorised to provide an improved supply of water for the burgh, and powers of assessment were given them for that purpose. Section
Page: 221↓
51 of the Act contained this proviso:—“Provided always that the annual value of the railway and sidings (wherever situate), stations, depots, and buildings (but not including any railway pier or quay) belonging to the Callander and Oban Railway Company within the burgh shall, as regards the public water-rate and the police assessment so far as it is applicable to water, be held to be the nearest aggregate of pounds sterling to one-fourth of the annual value thereof entered in the valuation roll.” This was a Special Case, to which the Police Commissioners of the Burgh of Oban were the first parties and the Callander and Oban Railway Company the second parties, for the purpose of obtaining the opinion of the Court upon the following question—“Whether the said refreshment rooms are, as regards the public water-rate and the police assessment so far as it is applicable to water, to be assessed at the nearest aggregate sum of pounds sterling to one-fourth of the annual value thereof entered in the valuation roll; or at the full annual value thereof entered in the said roll?”
Argued for the first parties—The refreshment rooms should be valued in the ordinary way, and not, as was the case with the railway buildings, at one-fourth of the annual value. The refreshment rooms were let to a tenant, were open to the public, and entered in the ordinary valuation roll. The case of the North British Railway Company v. Greig, March 20, 1866, 4 Macph. 645, ruled the present, and section 51 did not make any difference, because the word “buildings” there used must be taken to mean buildings such as are used for the purposes of the undertaking.
Argued for the second parties—This case was distinguishable from that of Greig, because there were here no qualifying words. Section 51 contained an express rate applicable to all buildings of which the company were owners.
At advising—
The other parties are the Police Commissioners of the Burgh of Oban, and they propose to charge the railway company with water-rate under the Burgh Act 1881, in this way. They are willing to assess the station along with the railway itself on the footing that one-fourth of the annual value thereof as entered in the valuation roll is to be taken, but they wish to make a special exception in the case of the refreshment room, which they say should be assessed on the full valuation.
The facts, so far as necessary for the disposal of the case, are very few. This refreshment room is part of the station buildings. The station makes what is like three sides of a square, with one limb produced further than the others, and the refreshment room stands in one of the corners. The refreshment room is let to a tenant, but the primary object of course is to provide needful refreshment for passengers and for persons connected with the railway who require to be at the station at a time when they cannot get regular refreshment elsewhere. It was said that there is a door which communicates with the street outside, but I do not think that is a very great peculiarity—in fact, it is probably very common. At any rate it does not vary the case in any material degree.
Therefore prima facie the refreshment room is part of the station buildings, and we must look to the assessing statute in order to see whether there is any reason why the principle applicable to the rest of the station should not be applied in the case of the refreshment room. By section 51 of the Oban Burgh Act 1881 it is provided “that the annual value of the railway and sidings (wherever situate), stations, depots, and buildings (but not including any railway pier or quay) belonging to the Callander and Oban Railway Company within the burgh shall, as regards the public water-rate and the police assessment so far as it is applicable to water, be held to be the nearest aggregate sum of pounds sterling to one-fourth of the annual value thereof entered in the valuation roll.”
Now, it is material to observe that the rates here proposed to be levied are on owners only, and it seems to me that this section deals with one owner, the railway company, and prescribes a special rule for assessing that owner. The question therefore is, whether there is room for distinguishing the refreshment room from the other things enumerated in the section, “stations, depots, and buildings.” I think that in all ordinary and material senses the refreshment room is part of the station, and more obviously is part of the buildings. As therefore there is no hint of any distinction between one part of the station and another, I think that section 51 provides a special mode of assessment for the refreshment room as well as for the other property of the railway company within the burgh.
I am therefore for finding in terms of the first part of the question.
By section 51 of that Act it is provided—[ His Lordship quoted the section ut supra].
The question that has been put to us is whether the refreshment room is to be so rated. Now, there is contained in that section an express provision that that rate of assessment shall apply to all buildings which belong to the Callander and Oban Railway Company within the burgh. Therefore we have only to consider whether the refreshment room is a building belonging to the Callander and Oban Railway Company. That is admitted in the case, and therefore I think that under the express words of section 51 the particular mode of assessment therein prescribed applies to this refreshment room.
Page: 222↓
The Court found and declared that the refreshment rooms were, as regarded the public water-rate and the police assessment so far as it was applicable to water, to be assessed at the nearest aggregate sum of pounds sterling to one-fourth of the annual value thereof entered in the valuation roll.
Counsel for the First Parties (Police Commissioners of Oban)— Jameson— M'Kechnie. Agents— Gill & Pringle, W. S.
Counsel for the Second Parties (Callander and Oban Railway Company)— D.-F. Balfour, Q.C.— R. Johnstone. Agents— Hope, Mann, & Kirk, W.S.