Land Powers (Defence) Act 1958

6 Power to require use of land for limited training purposes. E+W+S

(1) Subject to the provisions of Part I of the Second Schedule to this Act, a Secretary of State . . . F1 may by order direct that any land specified in the order shall, during such period of twelve months as may be so specified, be subject to occasional use under the authority of the Minister making the order for any one or more of the following purposes so specified, that is to say—

(a) the encampment of persons in transit to or from a training area;

(b) the carrying out of signalling exercises;

(c) in the case of land consisting of or including cliffs on the seashore, the carrying out of cliff assault exercises;

(d) the affording of access to and from other land which by virtue of that or another order under this section is subject to occasional use for one or more of the foregoing purposes:

Provided that an order under this section shall not be made for the occasional use of the whole or any part of the same land during the whole or any part of the same period as is specified in any other such order.

(2) Subject to the two next following subsections, where an order is in force under this section in respect of any land, any persons authorised for the purpose by the Minister by whom the order was made may—

(a) at any time within the period specified in the order, enter upon that land, with or without equipment, for the purposes specified in the order in relation to that land and make use of the land, and carry out any work on, over or below the surface of the land, for those purposes;

(b) at any time before or during the period specified in the order, display notices on that land with respect to the exercises or operations to be carried out thereon and make other preparations on that land for those exercises or operations, and for that purpose enter upon the land, with or without equipment.

(3) The powers conferred by the last foregoing subsection shall not be exercisable unless, not less than fourteen days before the time at which entry is to be made on any land in pursuance thereof, the Minister by whom the order in question was made has given notice of the intended entry to any occupier of that land or any part thereof, specifying in the notice the period, not exceeding a continuous period of seventy-two hours, during which those powers are to be exercisable by virtue of the notice; and notice for the purposes of paragraph (a) of that subsection shall not be given—

(a) more than six times during the period specified in the order; or

(b) so as to expire less than twenty-one days after the expiration of the period specified in a previous notice given for the purposes of that paragraph;

and the powers conferred by the last foregoing subsection shall not be exercisable in respect of any period during which the use for the time being for defence training purposes of the land in question is the subject of a manoeuvres Order.

(4) Nothing in subsection (2) of this section shall authorise any person—

(a) to enter upon any land or premises which would be exempted from entry by virtue of paragraph (1) of the proviso to section two of the M1 Military Manoeuvres Act, 1897, if the order under this section were a manoeuvres Order; or

(b) to injure or deface any monument which is included in [F2 the Schedule compiled and maintained under section 1 of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979] . . . F3 ;

but the powers conferred by the said subsection (2) shall be exercisable notwithstanding any other restriction affecting the use of the land in question.

(5) The provisions of subsections (1), (3) and (4) of section six and section seven of the Military Manoeuvres Act, 1897 (which relate to compensation and penalties for obstruction) shall apply for the purposes of this section as if any reference in those provisions—

(a) to a manoeuvres Order were a reference to an order under this section;

(b) to the said Act of 1897 were a reference to this section;

(c) to authorised forces were a reference to persons authorised under subsection (2) of this section;

(d) to the execution, or to the purposes, of the manoeuvres were a reference to the exercise, or, as the case may be, to the purposes, of any rights conferred by virtue of this section;

(e) to the commission or to the compensation officer were a reference to the Minister by whom the order under this section in question was made.

(6) For the purposes of this section—

• “encampment” includes operations incidental to encampment (including the taking of water for use by persons or animals or in mechanically-propelled vehicles) and the carrying out of training exercises in the defence of the camp and operations incidental to such exercises;

• “equipment” (without prejudice to the generality of that expression) includes weapons, vehicles, aircraft and animals;

• “training area” means any area for the time being available for use for the training of Her Majesty’s forces;

• “signalling exercises” includes operations incidental to such exercises, including the erection of poles and the laying of wires and cables on or over land.

Textual Amendments

F1 Words repealed with saving by S.I. 1964/488

F2 Words substituted by Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 (c. 46, SIF 3), s. 64(2), Sch. 4 para. 5(a)

F3 Words repealed by Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 (c. 46, SIF 3), s. 64(3), Sch. 5 (by the note at the end of Sch. 5 it is provided that nothing in that Schedule shall affect the operation of any enactment in relation to monuments to which para. 1(1) of Sch. 3 to the repealing Act applies)

Modifications etc. (not altering text)

C1 S. 6(4)(a) amended by Manoeuvres Act 1958 (7 & 8 Eliz. 2. c. 7), s. 2(5)

Marginal Citations

M1 1897 c. 43.