63Alteration of water areas and sewerage areas
(1)Subject to subsection (4) below, the Secretary of State may from time to time by order amend column 2 of Schedule 8 to this Act so as to alter water areas or sewerage areas of the new water and sewerage authorities.
(2)A statutory instrument containing an order under this section shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.
(3)An order under this section may include such incidental, supplementary and consequential provisions as the Secretary of State may consider necessary or expedient for the purposes of the order.
(4)Before making an order under this section the Secretary of State shall prepare a draft of the order, shall consult with every new water and sewerage authority whose area would be altered by the order and with the Customers Council and shall publish in the Edinburgh Gazette, and in one or more local newspapers circulating in the geographical area affected by the order, a notice—
(a)stating the general effect of the order;
(b)specifying the places where copies of the draft order, and of any maps relating to it, may be inspected, free of charge and at all reasonable times, during a period of not less than twenty-eight days which begins with the date on which the notice is so published; and
(c)stating that any person affected by the order may within that period, by intimation in writing to the Secretary of State, object to the proposed making of the order.
(5)The Secretary of State shall serve a copy of a notice published under subsection (4) above on every body which he has, in accordance with that subsection, consulted.
(6)The Secretary of State shall have regard to any objection made by virtue of subsection (4)(c) above and timeously received; and he may then proceed to make the order, either in the form of the draft order or as amended by him.
(7)For the purposes of subsection (6) above, an objection is timeously received if received by the end of the specified period of not less than twenty-eight days which begins with the latest date on which is published an issue of the Edinburgh Gazette, or of a local newspaper, in which the notice mentioned in subsection (4) above appears by virtue of that subsection.