Local Government Act 1929

3 Power to combine councils for special purposes.

(1) Where any two or more councils, whether councils of counties or county boroughs, consider that it is expedient that the areas of the councils should be combined for any purpose connected with the administration of the functions transferred or to be transferred under this Part of this Act and make application to the Minister for the purpose, the Minister may make an order for combining the areas of the councils for the purposes named therein.

(2) Where it appears to the Minister that the combination of the areas of any two or more councils, whether councils of counties or county boroughs, for any purpose connected with the administration of the functions transferred or to be transferred under this Part of this Act, would tend to diminish expense, or would otherwise be of public or local advantage, the Minister may make an order for combining the areas of the councils for the purposes named therein :

Provided that an order shall not be made under this subsection except after a local inquiry, unless all the councils whose areas are to be so combined consent.

(3) An order under this section may establish for the purposes of the order a joint committee of the councils, and may constitute the joint committee a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal and with power to hold land for the purposes of their functions without licence in mortmain.

(4) Any such order shall define the functions of the joint committee, and regulate the election, meetings and business of the joint committee, the mode of defraying the expenses of the joint committee, and any other matter or thing which it appears necessary or proper to regulate for the better carrying into effect of the order, and may provide for making applicable, subject to the necessary modifications, to the joint committee any of the provisions of this Part or Parts VII or VIII of this Act (including the provisions as to administrative schemes).

(5) An order under this section may be made either before or after the appointed day, and

(a) where the order takes effect on the appointed day, any functions which under the order are to be functions of the joint committee shall, as from the appointed day, be transferred to the joint committee, and shall not be transferred to any of the councils included in the combination; and

(b) where the order takes effect after the appointed day, a council included in such a combination shall, save as otherwise provided by the order, cease to exercise any functions vested by the order in the joint committee.

(6) An order under this section shall be laid before Parliament as soon as may be after it is made.