Public Health Act 1925 (1925 Act)

Section 8: “Where any enactment in this Act provides for an appeal to a petty sessional court against a notice, determination, requirement, order or intended order of a local authority under this Act -

(1) Notice in writing of the appeal and of the grounds thereof shall be given by the appellant to the proper officer of the authority;

(2) The court may make such order in the matter as they consider reasonable, and may award costs to be recoverable as a civil debt;

(3) No proceeding shall be taken by the local authority, or work executed, until after the determination or abandonment of the appeal;

(4) Notice of the right of appeal shall be endorsed on the order of the local authority and on any notice communicating their determination, requirement or intended order.”

The Public Health Act 1925 appears to be the first attempt to implement a comprehensive regime on street naming. 

Parts I, II (where the quoted sections are), VI and VIII of the 1925 Act can be construed as one with the Public Health Acts 1875 to 1907 and they are all cited together as the Public Health Acts 1875 to 1925.

The 1925 Act does not apply in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

The case of Basildon Borough Council v James [2015] EWHC 3365 (Admin) deals with the approach that an appeal Court should take in respect of Section 18(4) (and the connected Section 8 which deals with appeals). The council proposed to rename streets as part of a redevelopment and residents objected and took the matter to the magistrates’ court. The court found against the council. On appeal, the High Court found that the options open to a Judge hearing the appeal are wide but they only apply where the Judge is satisfied that the appellant has shown that the authority’s decision on the facts was wrong. The burden is not on the authority to show that its decision was right. Where the Court does find that the authority’s decision was wrong then the Judge can exercise his or her powers under Section 8.

Section 17: “(1) Before any street is given a name, notice of the proposed name shall be sent to the urban authority by the person proposing to name the street.

(2) The urban authority, within one month after the receipt of such notice, may, by notice in writing served on the person by whom notice of the proposed name of the street was sent, object to the proposed name.

(3) It shall not be lawful to set up in any street an inscription of the name thereof—

(a) until the expiration of one month after notice of the proposed name has been sent to the urban authority under this section; and;

(b) where the urban authority have objected to the proposed name, unless and until such objection has been withdrawn by the urban authority or overruled on appeal;

and any person acting in contravention of this provision shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding level 1 on the standard scale and to a daily penalty not exceeding £1.

(4) Where the urban authority serve a notice of objection under this section, the person proposing to name the street may, within twenty-one days after the service of the notice, appeal against the objection to a petty sessional court.”

Section 17 applies where there is a new street that does not have a previous name.  The proposed name is to be submitted to the authority and the authority has a period of one month to object to the name. 

Section 18: “(1) The urban authority by order may alter the name of any street, or part of a street, or may assign a name to any street, or part of a street, to which a name has not been given.

(2) Not less than one month before making an order under this section, the urban authority shall cause notice of the intended order to be posted at each end of the street, or part of the street, or in some conspicuous position in the street or part affected.

(3) Every such notice shall contain a statement that the intended order may be made by the urban authority on or at any time after the day named in the notice, and that an appeal will lie under this Act to a petty sessional court against the intended order at the instance of any person aggrieved.

(4) Any person aggrieved by the intended order of the local authority may, within twenty-one days after the posting of the notice, appeal to a petty sessional court.”

(4A) In its application in relation to a street, or part of a street, in England, this section applies as if, in subsection (1), the words "may alter the name of any street, or part of a street, or" were omitted. See section 81 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 for provision about altering street names in England.”

Section 18 has been amended by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 section 81 and Schedule 5 paragraph 2. These amendments do not remove wording from subsection 1 of section 18 which allows the authority to exercise this power to alter the name of a street or part of a street. Instead, the new subsection 4A informs readers to simply ignore the words “may alter the name of any street, or part of a street” in respect of any street/part of a street in England.

Accordingly, section 18 can now only be used in England to assign a name to a street or part of a street which does not already have a name. The latter situation is likely to arise where either no nominated name has been received under section 17, or a name has been nominated but the authority has objected and either the nominee has not appealed or has appealed and been unsuccessful.

The authority must advertise the proposed street name for a period of one month prior to issuing the order.

Authorities in Wales may still use section 18 to alter an existing street name as well as assigning a name to a new street as outlined above.

There is no precedence given to section 18 over section 17 in respect of the original naming of a street. In the event a name had been proposed that the authority did not agree with and wished to make its own naming order, then it is assumed that in practice the authority would object to the name put forward under section 17. It would probably be advisable to wait until the section 17 appeal period expired before making the section 18 order but the notice could be published. Any person appealing the section 17 objection would probably appeal under section 18 at the same time. The court would then determine if the local authority was wrong to issue either the notice or the objection. It is hoped that local consultation and engagement would avoid this.