Section 32: Railway or canal premises., General Rate Act 1967

Subject to subsection (2) of this section, the provisions of this section shall have effect with respect to premises (hereafter in this section and in Schedule 5 to this Act referred to as railway or canal premises ") which are occupied wholly or partly for non-rateable purposes of any of the following Boards (hereafter in this section and the said Schedule 5 referred to as a " transport Board "), namely, the British Railways Board, the London Transport Board and the British Waterways Board.

There shall not be treated for the purposes of this section as railway or canal premises any premises of any of the following descriptions, namely—

premises occupied as a dwelling, hotel or place of public refreshment;

subject and without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 8 of Schedule 5 to this Act, office premises occupied by a transport Board which are not situated on operational land of that Board ;

premises so let out as to be capable of separate assessment.

No railway or canal premises which are or form part of premises occupied wholly for non-rateable purposes shall be liable to be rated or be included in any valuation list or in any rate.

In the case of a hereditament consisting of railway or canal premises occupied partly for non-rateable purposes and partly for other purposes of any of the following descriptions, that is to say—

purposes of any parts of the undertaking of a transport Board which are—

concerned with the carriage of goods or passengers by road transport or sea transport or with harbours; or

subsidiary or incidental to any such part of an undertaking so concerned;

purposes of the supply of electricity to an Electricity Board within the meaning of section 34 of this Act, including the generation of electricity so supplied,

there shall be ascribed to the hereditament under section 19 of this Act such net annual value as may be just having regard to the extent to which it is occupied for those other purposes; and if under any scheme for the time being in force such as is mentioned in section 117(7) of this Act any deduction falls to be made from the net annual value of the hereditament in arriving at its rateable value, that deduction shall be calculated with regard only to those other purposes.

In each year, each of the transport Boards shall make for the benefit of rating authorities in England and Wales, in lieu of the rates which would, apart from the provisions of subsections (3) and (4) of this section, be payable in respect of railway or canal premises, a payment of an amount determined in accordance with the provisions of Part I of Schedule 5 to this Act.

In this section, the expression " non-rateable purposes " means, subject to subsection (7) of this section, any of the following purposes of a transport Board, that is to say—

all purposes of the parts of the Board's undertaking which are concerned with the carriage of goods or passengers by rail or inland waterway or the provision of facilities for traffic by inland waterway ;

all purposes of any parts of the Board's undertaking which, not being such parts as are mentioned in subsection (4) (a) of this section, are subsidiary or incidental to any such part of the undertaking as is mentioned in paragraph (a) of this subsection.

For the purposes of this section—

services performed by a transport Board in connection with the collection and delivery of parcels, goods or merchandise conveyed or to be conveyed by rail or inland waterway shall be deemed to be performed in carrying on a part of the Board's undertaking concerned with the carriage of goods by rail or inland waterway and not in carrying on a part of the Board's undertaking concerned with road transport;

where railway or canal premises are occupied mainly lor non-rateable purposes and partly for the purposes of the central direction and control of the affairs of a transport Board, the last-mentioned purposes shall be deemed to be non-rateable purposes ;

where railway or canal premises are occupied by a transport Board partly for non-rateable purposes and partly for the purpose of the use of those premises by a transport Board for exhibiting advertisements thereon, the last-mentioned purpose shall be deemed to be a non-rateable purpose.

In this section, the following expressions have the following meanings respectively, that is to say—

" harbour " means any harbour, whether natural or artificial, and any port, haven, estuary, tidal or other river or inland waterway navigated by sea-going ships, and any dock, including any pier, jetty or other place at which ships can ship or unship goods or passengers ;
" inland waterway " includes any such waterway, whether natural or artificial;
" office premises " means any hereditament used wholly or mainly as an office or for office purposes;
" office purposes " includes the purposes of administration, clerical work and handling money; and " clerical work " includes writing, book-keeping, sorting papers, filing, typing, duplicating, punching cards or tapes, machine calculating, drawing and the editorial preparation of matter for publication ;
" operational land ", in relation to any body, means land which is used for the purpose of the carrying on of the body's undertaking, not being land which, in respect of its nature and situation, is comparable rather with land in general than with land which is used for the purpose of the carrying on of statutory undertakings within the meaning of the Town and Country Planning Act 1962;
" road transport " includes transport by light railway or tramway, if the light railway or tramway is laid wholly or mainly along a public highway and is used wholly or mainly for the carriage of passengers.

There shall have effect for the purposes of this section and Part I of Schedule 5 to this Act the supplementary provisions contained in Part II of that Schedule.

Section 32: Railway or canal premises.

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