136 Transfer of powers of local authorities to municipal corporations.
(1) The trustees appointed or acting by or under any local Act of Parliament for the time being in force, for paving, lighting, supplying with water or gas, cleansing, watching, regulating, or improving, a borough, or any part thereof, or for providing or maintaining a cemetery or market in or for a borough, or any part thereof, whether in any such case their powers under the local Act do or do not extend beyond the borough, may, if they think fit, at a meeting called for this purpose, transfer to the municipal corporation of the borough, with the consent of the council but not otherwise, all the rights, powers, estates, property, and liabilities for the time being vested in or imposed on the trustees under the local Act.
(2) The transfer shall be made in writing under the common seal of the trustees if they are a corporation, and if not, then by deed executed by the trustees, or by any two of them acting by their authority and on their behalf.
(3) On the transfer being made, the municipal corporation shall become and be the trustees for executing by the council the powers and provisions of the local Act; and all the rights, powers, estates, and property vested in the transferring trustees shall vest in the corporation; and all the liabilities and obligations of the transferring trustees shall be transferred to and borne by the corporation, and the transferring trustees shall be discharged therefrom.
137 Power for council to extend local lighting Act.
(1) Where at the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1835, there was a local Act of Parliament for lighting part of a borough then incorporated, the council may, if they think fit, make an order that any specified part of the borough not within the provisions of any such local Act shall, after a day fixed in the order, be within those provisions; and after that day the part so specified shall be within those provisions, as far as relates to lighting, or to any rate authorized to be levied for lighting.
(2) But the part so specified shall be lighted in like manner as those parts of the borough which before the making of the order were within those provisions; and any rate raised for the purpose of defraying the expenses of lighting the part so specified shall not exceed the average expense in the pound of lighting the other parts of the borough.
Everything provided under any local Act of Parliament in force on the twentieth of August, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, to be done exclusively by a particular or limited number, class, or description of the members of any body corporate named in the schedules to the Municipal Corporations Act, 1835, the continuance of which was not inconsistent with the provisions of that Act, and everything provided in any such local Act to be done by the justices, or by some particular class or description, or members of such body corporate, being justices, at a court of quarter sessions, which did not relate to the business of a court of criminal or civil judicature, if the same respectively has been lawfully continued to be done up to the commencement of this Act by the council, or a committee thereof, shall be continued thereafter to be done by the council at a quarterly meeting, or by any three of a committee of the council appointed at such a meeting.
149 Borough rate to go to borough fund; and its application.
All sums levied in pursuance of the borough rate shall go to the borough fund; and, subject to the foregoing provisions of this Part, the same shall be applied to all purposes to which the borough fund is applicable under this Act, or otherwise by law; and, as regards a borough named in the schedules to the Municipal Corporations Act, 1835, to all purposes to which, before the passing of that Act, a borough rate was by law applicable in the borough, or a county rate was applicable in a county.
150 General exemption of quarter sessions boroughs from county rate.
(1) Where a borough has a separate court of quarter sessions, the justices of a county wherein the borough or any part thereof is situate shall not assess any hereditaments in the borough to any county rate; and, except as is expressly by this Act provided, every part of the borough shall be wholly free from contributing to any rate or assessment of any kind of and for that county.
(2) But nothing in this section shall prevent the levy or collection of arrears of any county rate made before the grant of a separate court of quarter sessions.
152 Liability of certain quarter sessions boroughs to other county expenses.
(1) If the whole or any part of the area for the time being comprised in a borough having a separate court of quarter sessions was, before the eleventh of July one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, chargeable with or liable to contribute to the county rate of the county in which it is situate, the municipal corporation shall, . . . continue liable to contribute to the county rate for other purposes (in this Act referred to as general county purposes), as if this Act had not been passed.
(2) General county purposes shall not include the costs arising out of coroners’ inquests, or the expenses incurred under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1875, in respect of the county, . . . , or payments to or in respect of special constables.
(1) The treasurer of each county shall, not more than twice in every year, send to the council of each borough situate in the county . . . an account shewing separately—
(a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(b) If the borough is liable to contribute to the county rate for general county purposes, all sums expended out of the county rate for general county purposes, and all sums received in aid or on account of the county rate, and the proportion chargeable on the borough of the sums so expended after deduction of the sums so received;
and shall make an order on the council for the payment of the sum appearing by this account to be due from the municipal corporation of the borough.
(2) The council shall thereupon forthwith order the sum so appearing to be due, with all reasonable charges of making and sending the account, to be paid to the treasurer of the county out of the borough fund.
(3) If the order is not complied with, two justices ... may, on the complaint of the treasurer of the county, made within one month after the issue of the order, issue and send to the treasurer of the borough a warrant requiring him to pay to the treasurer of the county, besides the sum mentioned in the order, the additional sum mentioned in the warrant, the same being calculated in the proportion of one shilling to every ten on the sum mentioned in the order; and until payment thereof the treasurer of the county shall have, in respect of the warrant, all the powers for the recovery thereof which are given against a guardian or overseer for the recovery of county rates and surcharges.
(4) If any difference arises concerning the account, it shall be decided by the arbitration of a barrister, named, on the application either of the treasurer of the county or of the treasurer of the borough, by the Secretary of State. The arbitrator may, if he thinks fit, adjourn the hearing from time to time, and may require all such information to be afforded by either party as he thinks fit. He shall by his award in writing determine the amount to be paid by the council to the treasurer of the county, and his award shall be final and conclusive. He shall also assess the costs of the arbitration and determine by whom and out of what fund they shall be paid.