River Board

River boards were authorities who controlled land drainage, fisheries and river pollution and had other functions relating to rivers, streams and inland waters in England and Wales between 1950 and 1965.

Prior to the 1930s, land drainage in the United Kingdom was regulated by the Statute of Sewers, passed by King Henry VIII in 1531, and several further acts which built upon that foundation. However, the administrative bodies with responsibility for managing the drainage of low-lying areas did not have sufficient resources to do this effectively. Complaints to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries made during the 1920s by existing drainage boards and those who lived and worked in the areas they covered led to the government deciding that a thorough review of the situation should be carried out. A Royal Commission was set up, under the chairmanship of Lord Bledisloe, which produced a final report on 5 December 1927. The report described the existing laws as "vague and ill-defined, full of anomalies, obscure, lacking in uniformity, and even chaotic." It recommended that any replacement should have powers to carry out the work necessary for efficient drainage, together with the provision of financial resources to enable them to carry out their duties.

At the time there were 361 drainage authorities covering England and Wales, and the proposed solution was the creation of catchment boards responsible for each main river, with powers over the individual drainage boards within each catchment. The report formed the basis for a subsequent bill, which became the Land Drainage Act 1930 when it became law on 1 August 1930. It repealed most of the legislation that had preceded it, with 16 acts dating from 1531 to 1929 falling into this category, and another three were amended. When the Act was published, however, it contained only 47 catchment areas of the original 100 suggested by the Royal Commission.

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