Pease and Chitty's Law of Markets and Fairs
Publisher: Bloomsbury Professional
Author: Edward F Cousins
Price: £130.00
Edition: 6th Edition (August 2012)
ISBN: 978-1-84766-742-7
Buy from Bloomsbury Professional: Click Here
The
laws relating to markets, fairs and street trading are notoriously
complicated and pulled from a variety of different areas of law (including property law, consumer law and local government law).
Since it was first published in 1898, Pease and Chitty's Law of
Markets and Fairs has become one of the leading works for
practitioners in this field. It is then perhaps surprising that
this latest edition is only the sixth edition and it comes fourteen
years after the last edition. This sixth edition has, however,
been thoroughly updated to include all of the latest changes to the law
(including the important decision in Leeds City Council v
Watkins & Whiteley [2003] UKCLR 469 where Cousins appeared for the
Council) and will be welcomed by anyone practising in this area of law.
Pease and Chitty's Law of Markets and Fairs is split into eleven chapters: introduction; creation and acquisition of markets and fairs; the market place and the place for holding fairs; the days and hours for holding markets and fairs; toll and stallage; disturbance; sales in markets and fairs; forfeiture and extinction of markets and fairs; regulation, administration and control; accounts, rates and taxes; practice, procedure and evidence; and the Irish dimension. The introduction of the Irish element is useful either (a) by way of comparison for English practitioners (particularly given Cousins' experience of practising at the Irish bar) and (b) for those practitioners who provide advice both in the UK and in Ireland.
The written style of Pease and Chitty's Law of Markets and Fairs is unsurprisingly old-fashioned. It expertly explains the law but the text is rather dense and there are a considerable number of detailed (and invaluable) footnotes. For experienced practitioners this is unlikely to be an issue (and the detailed footnotes provide a wealth of further information and a superb starting point for further research). Less experienced practitioners, perhaps those newly qualified within a local authority, may, however, find the text rather daunting. If the next edition was re-worked so that the material was provided in a more accessible way, it would improve its readability and the reader's experience of using the text.
One of the reasons that Pease and Chitty's Law of Markets and Fairs has been going (and is so well regarded) after more than a hundred years since the first edition is because of its expert coverage of this complicated area of law. It is that same level of expertise which shines through in this latest edition. It has some excellent features, including the 'illustrations' which pepper the text, and if a future edition is updated to improve its readability, it is likely to continue to be a favourite for the next hundred of years. Until the next edition, this will continue to be an invaluable text for local authority lawyers and those advising market and fair operators in the UK and Ireland.
Reviewed on 7 August 2013
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