This book is directed at non-specialists in legal practice in the field of utility law. It covers gas, electricity, water and sewerage, and telecommunications. This approach is limited in legal literature and is welcome, and demonstrates the similarities of these areas. This text makes a contribution to the growing literature in the legal fields related to energy, planning and utilities. It highlights the legal issues that are on the horizon in each of these areas – areas that have been neglected in the push from the general policy of privatisation in the economy over the last three to four decades. While the targeted readers are clearly those in legal practice or lawyers working in regulatory organisations or other such institutions, there is a significant amount of interesting material for the academic reader. For the academic, it uncovers many avenues of underexplored research themes. It will also prove very useful for operators within each of the utility sectors.
It could be argued that this book has a core emphasis on energy since it deals mainly with the gas and the electricity sectors. Nevertheless, the approach of the text in examining the issues from the perspective of utility law is very informative and provides interesting insights. The book is divided into five parts. Part I of the book provides a very good introduction to the latest developments and to the key legal issues concerning each utility. In Parts II to V it moves to explore each utility in further detail. What is missing especially after the strong, interesting and comprehensive opening part to the book is a clear conclusion. This should have summarised some of the key themes of the previous chapters and also the author's perspective on the future direction of developments in each of the utility sectors.
In Part II, regulation in the gas industry is scrutinised. This has three chapters on: procuring a gas network, building a gas network and obtaining a gas supply, respectively. This section of the book highlights the vital aspects of utility law that focus on the supply network for that utility – gas in this case. This is in comparison to an energy law book where law and policy issues are the centre of discussion. The three chapters go through in detail the legal issues that operators, suppliers, developers, and customers within the gas sector may come across. Negotiations on property rights are identified as one of the “most problematic areas” (p. 71).
In the following section of the book, Part III, a similar approach to Part II is adopted in the examination of the electricity industry. Again there are three chapters covering: procurement of an electricity network, building an electricity network and obtaining a supply of electricity. The legal issues analysed mirror those of the previous part of the book on gas but go into more detail on property rights, compulsory purchase and consents necessary for constructing, operating or extending (under s.37 and s.38 of the Electricity Act 1989 and s.31 and s.33 of the Planning Act 2008).
The final two parts (IV and V) of the book assess water and sewerage, and telecommunications. Again the same mode of analysis employed in the earlier parts is continued, with three chapters in each part and covering: procurement of a network; building a network; and obtaining a supply of services. This repeated structure of analysis of the law for each utility is clear and delivers the significant messages to the reader, though, it further highlights the lack of a concluding chapter that could have summarised the key differences in these three areas for each utility; or at least a concluding section to each chapter. In essence, a comparative legal analysis is missing and perhaps it can be added in a future edition or is only of more interest to the academic reader! But, such an analysis would also be of some importance to the practitioner when advising a client.
Part IV on water and sewerage similarly to the earlier analysis on gas and electricity identifies property rights and consumer issues as areas of conflict. It also points towards the difficulties in this sector from an infrastructure perspective and the monopoly structure of ownership. It highlights the push for privatisation in utility networks as a common theme throughout each part of the book. In Part V on telecommunications, it is clear that there has been more success in terms of privatisation of the sector. Interestingly with fuel poverty being a “hot topic” currently, the author identifies, that for the telecommunications sector, that those on “low incomes” are explicitly included in the consumer category of those with disabilities and hence should be treated under specific steps that communications providers are required to take in order to meet the needs of disabled End-Users and Subscribers.
To academics, the author has provided a significant amount of the groundwork research in this area. They will find a text that offers a variety of possible research areas to evaluate and write about. Utility networks, is the topic of this book set to become more contentious in time, and subject to even more legal disputes. For example, as the push comes from the European Commission and the United Kingdom to develop a low carbon economy, issues such as property rights, connecting to the electricity network, and the role of the consumer will be of further importance for both the gas and electricity industries.
The book limits its focus to utilities in the UK, and there is no account given of how it might be of use to the reader in other countries. However, those in the European Union will naturally have an interest in the text from an EU and comparative law perspective. Property rights, infrastructure, effect of privatisation policies and consumer issues are the central issues that emerge. This book will be of value to the practitioner in the UK working in planning, environmental and energy law in relation to utilities. It provides an interesting approach to examining these four major utility areas. However, it has underexploited its potential to some degree, especially for the academic reader. It will prove a very useful text for non-specialists and with that being the aim of the book the author has indeed delivered. Network infrastructure is now a key concern in many of these utility sectors and in particular for electricity and water, and as such this book will be seen to make a valuable contribution to the literature in the years to come.
