The Court of Appeal’s Latest Statutory Nuisance Judgment

The judgment builds on the Court of Appeal’s previous decision in R (on the application of Ball) v Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council [2025] 1 All ER 1025, its most recent statutory nuisance case, in which Gordon also appeared for the Respondent, in that instance the council.

The judgment concerned the meaning of s.79(1)(e), Environmental Protection Act 1990 (“any accumulation or deposit which is prejudicial to health or a nuisance”), a category of statutory nuisance given to a wide range of insalubrious factual circumstances.

In this case, the facts concerned a common irritation, cat fouling, the trial judge having relied upon the case of R v Carrick DC Ex p Shelley [1996] Env LR 273, which concerned “sewage related debris” washed on to a beach from a water outfall. In both cases the local authority had failed to make a determination as to whether a statutory nuisance in fact existed.

The appeal hinged on a limited issue, namely whether an accumulation or deposit had to be ‘purposeful’ or ‘wilful’, an issue which did not significantly detain the Court (the appeal was dismissed).

Of more general interest to practitioners is the fact that the Court built on Ball to show that s.79(1) must be treated as a self-contained first stage in the process.

Section 79(1) is the initial section of Part III of the 1990 Act, which, as the Court noted, can be traced back by a series of legislative antecedents to the 1855 Nuisance Removal Act, designed to secure the swift identification (and removal) of statutory nuisances.  The 1855 Act came into force to deal with a spate of cholera epidemics.

Once a statutory nuisance has been identified under stage 1, then issues of responsibility and the wording of the abatement notice follow.

A related issue is whether statutory nuisances should be overlaid with common law principles, given their origin.  If there is an imperative to clear a statutory nuisance from land under stage 1 of the Public Health Acts going back to 1855, then what purpose do common law principles serve?  By the time of the hearing, this issue was no longer live, so that the question did not require determination.

The high point of this line of common law ‘overlay’ authorities is National Coal Board v. Thorne [1976] 1 WLR 543, which the Respondent would have argued was wrongly decided.  Miles LJ volunteered during argument only such a thorny issue would have to wait for another day.

See the blog on Gordon Wignall’s website, which provides guidance on the law of nuisance, for further discussion of this case at: https://wiglaw.co.uk/caerphilly-county-borough-council-v-r-williamson/

The full judgment will be found here: https://wiglaw.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/Williamson-Judgment-Final.pdf