Gas Act 1965

26 Ecclesiastical property.

(1) Where under this Part of this Act a document is required to be served on an owner of land, and the land is ecclesiastical property, a copy of the document shall be served on the Church Commissioners.

(2) Any compensation payable under this Part of this Act to a person by virtue of his title to any interest in land shall, if the land is ecclesiastical property and if the interest is the fee simple in the land, be paid (where the fee simple is vested in any person other than the Church Commissioners) to them instead of to that person.

(3) Any sums paid under the last foregoing subsection to the Church Commissioners with reference to any land shall, if the land is not consecrated, be applied by them for the purposes for which the proceeds of a sale by agreement of the fee simple in the land would be applicable under any enactment or Measure authorising such a sale or disposing of the proceeds of such a sale, and, if the land is consecrated, be applied by them in such manner as they may determine.

(4) Where the fee simple in any ecclesiastical property is in abeyance, it shall be treated—

(a) for the purposes of this Part of this Act, and

(b) for the purposes of any proceedings for the confirmation of a compulsory purchase order made by virtue of section 11 of the principal Act for purposes connected with an underground gas storage and of the compulsory purchase in pursuance of the compulsory purchase order,

as being vested in the Church Commissioners, and any notice to treat shall be served accordingly.

(5) In this section the expression " ecclesiastical property" means land belonging to an ecclesiastical benefice of the Church of England, or being or forming part of a church subject to the jurisdiction of the bishop of any diocese of the Church of England or the site of a church so subject, or being or forming part of a burial ground so subject.