In the aftermath of the pollution incidents involving the Amoco Cadiz, Eleni V and Christos Bitas, considerable criticism has been levelled at the unco-ordinated response of local and central Government. In particular, the Select Committee on Science and Technology has condemned the illogicality of a system whereby responsibility for clearance operations is supposedly divided between local authorities and the Department of Trade at an arbitrary distance of one mile from the shore.1 This sentiment has been echoed in Parliament and the Press,2 and there is a widespread belief that the law is urgently in need of amendment. Yet, anyone wishing to examine the legislative basis of the present situation might experience difficulty in identifying the relevant statutory provisions; for this is a subject in which administrative practice has tended to develop independently of legal authorisation.

It is regrettably observable that British policies on pollution control are chronologically linked to the occurrence of major disasters, which have generally been separated by periods of official apathy. Thus, the current organisation is explicable only as a combination of unconsolidated emergency measures. In 1968, 16 months after the wreck of the Torrey Canyon revealed the absence of effective contingency plans, circulars were issued to coastal councils by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Welsh Office3 and the Scottish Development Department,4 urging the preparation of schemes to protect beaches from the threat of oil spillages. This was represented as a temporary expedient until a Bill could be promoted to clarify and strengthen the powers of local authorities “both on and off-shore”. In the meantime, councils were advised that, since the Royal Navy could not always combat pollution at sea, they “should themselves be ready to deal with oil within, say, a mile of the coast”.

It is interesting to note that no consideration was apparently accorded to the constitutional ability of councils to take such action beyond the seaward limit of their areas, which ordinarily terminate at the low-water mark. Significantly, when the public interest is involved, conduct that should strictly be deemed ultra vires is euphemistically dubbed “extra-statutory”. Some local authorities, indeed, took the precaution of incorporating formulaic sections into private Acts, permitting them to use chemical sprays on tidal water, and to cleanse “land below the level of mean low-water springs” ;5 but their misunderstanding of administrative boundaries in England and Wales left theoretical doubts about the status of the littoral zone above that line.6