(1)If a person, without lawful authority or excuse, places any apparatus in or under a highway or breaks open a highway for the purpose of placing, maintaining, repairing or reinstating any apparatus in or under it, he is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding £20 or, in the case of a second or subsequent offence, to a fine not exceeding £50.
(2)The highway authority for a highway may by a licence granted under this section permit any person to place and leave, or to retain, and thereafter (in either case) to maintain, repair and reinstate, apparatus in or under the highway and to break open and to have access to the highway for those purposes.
(3)The highway authority may, as they think fit—
(a)grant a licence under this section to any person and insert in the licence a provision prohibiting assignment of the licence ; or
(b)grant a licence to any person and insert in the licence a provision permitting assignment of the licence; or
(c)grant such a licence to the owner of any premises ad joining the highway and his successors in title, the licence, unless and until withdrawn or surrendered, to be annexed to those premises;
and references in this section and section 182 below to the licensee are references to the person who is for the time being entitled by virtue of such a licence to do anything permitted by it to be done.
(4)No fine, rent or other sum of money is payable in respect of such a licence except—
(a)a reasonable sum in respect of legal or other expenses incurred in connection with the grant of the licence; and
(b)an annual charge of a reasonable amount for administering the licence;
and any such sum is recoverable from the licensee.
(5)Before granting a licence under this section a highway authority shall give not less than 14 days' notice of their intention so to do to any statutory undertakers or sewerage authority whose apparatus or plans for the installation of apparatus are likely to be affected by the works to be authorised by the licence.
(6)The licensee is not for the purposes of section 17 of the Schedule to the [1899 c. 19.] Electric Lighting (Clauses) Act 1899 (power to alter apparatus under streets, etc.) a person in whom powers in relation to a street or place are vested nor are any works carried out by the licensee in pursuance of a licence under this section undertakers' works within the meaning of section 1 of the [1950 c. 39.] Public Utilities Street Works Act 1950.
(7)A licence under this section shall not authorise any interference with the apparatus or works of any statutory undertakers or sewerage authority without the consent of those undertakers or that authority, as the case may be, nor shall such a licence authorise the installation of any apparatus for the installation or use of which the licence of the Secretary of State or the Post Office, or of both the Secretary of State and the Post Office, is required by virtue of any enactment unless and until that licence has been granted.
(8)This section does not apply to the apparatus of statutory undertakers or sewerage authorities.
(9)In this section and section 182 below references to statutory undertakers include references to the Post Office.
(10)Where the land on which a highway is situated is owned by the highway authority for the highway, nothing in subsection (4) above is to be taken as affecting the rights of that authority as the owner of that land to grant any person, for such consideration as they think fit, the right to place any thing in or under that land.