If a local authority consider that any watercourse or ditch, situate upon land laid out for building, or on which any land laid out for bunding abuts, should be wholly or partially tilled up or covered over, they may by notice require the owner of the land laid out for building, before any building operations are begun or while any such operations are in progress, wholly or partially to fill up the watercourse or ditch, or to substitute therefor a pipe, drain or culvert with all necessary gullies and other means of conveying surface water into and through it.
Any question arising under this section between a local authority and an owner as to the reasonableness of any works which the authority require to be executed may, on the application of either party, be determined by a court of summary jurisdiction.
Any person who, on any land to which a notice given by a local authority under this section applies, begins or proceeds with any building operations before executing the works required by the notice, shall be liable to a fine not exceeding five pounds and to a further fine not exceeding forty shillings for each day on which the offence continues after conviction therefor.
Nothing in this section shall empower an authority to require the execution of works upon the land of any person other than the owner of the land laid out for building, without the consent of that person, or prejudicially to affect the rights of any person not being the owner of the land so laid out.