Statute Law Repeals - Law Commission - Ministry of Justice

6.57 Responsibility for paving and maintaining public streets has long ceased to vest
in individual parishes or Liberties but has passed to local and county councils and
the London boroughs. 98 Similarly the cost of providing these services is no longer
collected on a parish by parish basis. Today the arrangements for making,
levying and collecting local taxation are provided by the Local Government
Finance Acts 1988 and 1992. Accordingly the 1778 Act has long been obsolete.
Spitalfields Streets Act (1778) / Spitalfields Improvement Act (1782)
6.58 These two late 18 th century Acts were passed to construct a street to provide
access for carriages between Spitalfields and Bishopsgate. 99 The 1778 Act 100
was passed to authorise money arising from the Orphans Fund (as described
earlier in relation to the Ratcliff Highway Act of 1778) to be used to pay for the
cost of constructing this street. The Act accordingly required the City of London to
use the Orphans Fund as security for the payment of £9000 to certain
Commissioners who had been appointed to carry out the construction works. The
1782 Act 101 was passed to amend the Commissioners’ powers as provided by the
1778 Act.
6.59 Both Acts have long ceased to serve any useful purpose. Records held at the
London Metropolitan Archives show that by October 1824 all moneys outstanding
from the City of London under the terms of the 1778 Act had been paid. Moreover
the 1782 Act became obsolete in 1786 when the street was actually completed.
98 The Commissioners’ powers under the 1778 Act ceased in 1855 with the creation of the
Metropolitan Board of Works by the Metropolis Management Act 1855 (18 & 19 Vict.
c.120). The Commissioners’ functions devolved upon the Board of Works for the
Whitechapel District. Today these functions are mostly vested in the London Boroughs of
Hackney and Tower Hamlets.
99 The street constructed pursuant to these Acts appears to be the thoroughfare that is today
known as Brushfield Street which runs west from Commercial Street to Bishopsgate.
Brushfield Street was formerly known as Paternoster Row, and then as Union Street,
before being renamed as Brushfield Street in 1870.
100 18 Geo.3 c.78.
101 22 Geo.3 c.43.
185