By Graham Smith

County Hall’s failure to complete an investigation into a mysterious underground water pipe at Hayle is to become the focal point of a council tax liability trial.

A case management hearing at Truro magistrates’ court yesterday (Wednesday) set 10^th March 2021 as the date for a contest over Mel Sheridan’s responsibility for an unpaid bill dating from 2019.

The stakes, however, are potentially much higher than the £759.03 council tax debt.  The full-blown hearing provides Ms Sheridan with a platform to embarrass Cornwall Council, South West Water and her local MP George Eustice.

Magistrates’ clerk Martin Stephens told Ms Sheridan she would have to demonstrate that the council had failed to follow correct due process when issuing its tax demand, and he warned her that the court has no discretion to pass judgement on who was responsible for the damage caused when her home began sinking in 2006.

Ms Sheridan has always insisted that she is prepared to pay her council tax bills but that she wants the council to complete the investigation it started in 2018 – and which the council itself appears to have linked to her liability for tax payment.

Although the strict liability for council tax payment is not in dispute, Ms Sheridan’s case is complicated by Cornwall Council’s earlier agreement to suspend collection pending its investigation into the warren of underground pipes and old copper mine workings which are a legacy of Hayle’s industrial history.

The council’s unilateral ending of that agreement in 2019, with the investigation still not complete, was further complicated by County Hall’s decision to write off more than £3,000 in tax debt.  The council says this was a “goodwill gesture and not an admission of liability.”

Ms Sheridan’s defence to the current liability order appears to rest on whether the unilateral ending of that highly unusual agreement breaches the 1992 Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations.  At no time were any elected councillors involved in the decision to write off Ms Sheridan’s earlier debt.

It had taken more than ten years of campaigning by Ms Sheridan before the council started to look seriously at what had happened to render her £350,000 home worthless.  The gradual collection of water under a wall has led to subsidence.

Officials spent months in 2018, exchanging information with South West Water, the Drinking Water Authority, and local MP George Eustice, before concluding that they lacked the necessary expertise and needed government help to get to the bottom of the issue.  A confidential Cornwall Council note, prepared for Mr Eustice and covered by Cornwall Reports, said that County Hall had exhausted its capacity for further inquiry and urged the government to compel South West Water to accept responsibility.

South West Water also denies any liability for the underground pipe.

In January 2019 the council told Mr Eustice that the Coal Authority, which has responsibility for all abandoned mine workings, should take over the investigation.  Just over a year later Mr Eustice became the Environment Secretary, and has the power to order such a development.  Last year he introduced a Bill into Parliament to extend the Coal Authority's remit to include historic tin and copper mine workings.  The issue featured prominently in Hayle during last year's General Election campaign.

Cornwall Council attended court yesterday expecting to proceed with its application for a tax liability order.  But magistrates’ chairwoman Kate Cook said: “This is not a normal council tax case.”

Council solicitor Lynda Ryan said she felt Ms Sheridan’s complaint “should be directed at a different kind of court” adding that County Hall “felt it had done all it could.  The decision to write off just over £3,000 was a goodwill gesture to cover the period of the investigation.”

Ms Sheridan told magistrates that because her home was now unsaleable, and because council tax is assessed on the basis of value, she felt she also had a defence on the grounds of incorrect assessment.  But Mr Stephens said that such a claim should be tested properly at a Valuations Tribunal.

The case management hearing also issued directions as to how information is to now be compiled and exchanged.

Ms Sheridan said she has 21 witnesses to support her case, including neighbours who also have an interest in who is responsible for old pipes under their homes.  But Mr Stephens doubted if all of the potential witnesses would be strictly relevant.  He said that, for example, medical evidence attesting to the impact of the 14-year saga on Ms Sheridan’s health was not controversial and could be accepted by way of written statement.

Cornwall Council must now prepare a bundle of legal papers, outlining its argument in support of a council tax liability order, and serve its bundle on Ms Sheridan by 4^th January 2021.  The case will then be heard by Truro magistrates at 10am on Wednesday 10^th March.

It will have taken nearly 15 years to get that far.  Because the case is about council tax liability, Ms Sheridan’s chances of success are limited very narrowly to questions over correct due process.  The magistrates are unlikely to entertain much discussion of the historic engineering issues, summarised below.

It was the winter of 2006 that Ms Sheridan first noticed that Tremeadow Terrace, immediately outside her smart, Victorian-era end-terrace home, appeared to be sinking.  There was no obvious cause, and she knew that there was no record of mine workings in the area.  Ms Sheridan told Cornwall Council and South West Water.  Nothing happened.

Twelve months later, the subsidence was turning into a small pond.  Ms Sheridan again called the council, and – suspecting a burst pipe - again told South West Water.  Again, nothing happened.

A further 12 months passed before Ms Sheridan noticed a slight crack in the wall of her house, immediately next to where the road was continuing to sink.

In January 2009, South West Water began a programme of works which included “re-sleeving” some of the old cast iron supply pipes which zig-zag beneath the surface of Hayle, and which were once part of the town’s mighty industrial heritage.

It is not clear if SWW, or its sub-contractors, knew which supply pipes they were supposed to repair, which were historic sewage or drainage pipes, and which were simply obsolete.  It would have taken a detailed, meticulous and exhaustive research programme, delving deep into the archives, to be certain.

Mel Sheridan and supporters at Truro magistrates' court yesterday (Wednesday)

Many people suspect that flooding problems in the Pen Pol road area of Hayle are linked to the town's industrial history

Over the past 10 years, SWW has never suggested to Ms Sheridan that it did actually undertake such a research programme.

What is known is that in the 1980s, as part of a flood alleviation programme, SWW did investigate the route of some of the historic culverts and produced its own set of maps which – had they been studied in 2009 – might have alerted the company to some of the issues ahead.

At some point between January and March 2009, a SWW “pipe-bursting” exercise, a pre-requisite to re-sleeving, completely smashed the pipe outside Ms Sheridan’s home, where the road had already been sinking.  It was a further three years before this damage to the pipe was recognised.

In July 2009, Cormac arrived on site to consider repairs to the highway but was unable to trace source of water. Cormac nevertheless attempted a temporary fix with a granular fill.

Over the next three years Ms Sheridan’s house was chronically falling apart.  There was further subsidence to the road and renewed pooling of water.  Throughout the period 2009-2012 Ms Sheridan contacted SWW and urged them to investigate properly, suggesting the use of a subterranean camera.

SWW told Ms Sheridan they believed any old water course was probably a culvert underneath her home, and therefore it was her responsibility.

On 16^th April 2012, SWW, Cormac and the Environment Agency all turned up, with a suction pump, intending to clear all of the water from the hole in the road.  This operation not only found the old cast-iron pipe, it snapped it – in the highway.  Tests established that the water flowing through this pipe was not chlorinated and that its source was probably an historic supply.

The complexity of the issue was compounded by the fact that only a few yards away there are separate surface water storm drains and sewage pipes.

On 25^th April 2012 the pipe was fixed with new joints and a sleeve.  The hole in the road was left open and a lintel was put in to stop the house falling into it, and to protect the pipe.  On 21^st May, Cormac again resurfaced the road, and everyone went home thinking the job was finally done.  But three days later, there was more water.  SWW contractors May Gurney immediately identified an open sewer, previously – apparently - not noticed.

Before the hearing a group of nearly 20 placard-waving supporters had gathered in the court car park, causing some consternation to a security official who snatched a mobile phone belonging to Cornwall Reports.  One of protestors retrieved the phone and returned it to a grateful journalist.

grahamsmith@cornwallreports.co.uk