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This section provides information about the Central Rating Lists to staff dealing with local lists.

There are separate Central Rating Lists Regulations for England and Wales. References below are to the Regulations for England. Those for Wales are similar but their numbering is different. The Regulations designate the networks of large regional and national utility company occupations and some other cross boundary occupations that are to be treated as single hereditaments. The designations are:

Part 1 Network Rail Infrastructure Limited (the national rail network) and London Underground Limited

Part 2 Docklands Light Railway and The Tyne and Wear Metro

Part 3 Communications (e.g. British Telecommunications Plc)

Part 4 National and Regional Gas Transportation (e.g. National Grid Gas PLC)

Part 5 Local Gas Transportation (the occupations of one independent gas transporter or LGT is not designated in the central list and is therefore assessed in local lists in the usual way)

Part 6 Gas Meters

Part 7 Electricity Transmission (e.g. National Grid Electricity Transmission PLC)

Part 8 Electricity Distribution (the occupations of independent distribution network operators or IDNOs are not designated in the central list and are therefore assessed in local lists in the usual way)

Part 9 Electricity Meters

Part 10 Water Supply (e.g. Thames Water)

Part 11 This designation was in respect of The British Waterways Boards (BWB) canals. BWBs functions were transferred to the Canal & River Trust on 2 July 2012 and the central list entries were deleted. New regulations (SI 2012/1291) prescribed the Canal & River Trusts occupation for the whole of England (in similar terms to the previous BWB designation) into the Birmingham City Council Rating List.

Part 12 Pipelines

NDR Unit involvement will largely be dealing with:

1) BARs to enter or delete hereditaments from local lists where the occupier is said to be a designated person in the central lists

2) Checks, proposals or representations from ratepayers to delete assessments from local lists where they claim that they are occupied by a designated person in the central lists.

The general workings of the regulations are as follows but the detailed explanations in the remainder of this section and the regulations themselves should be referred to in dealing with cases of this sort:

1) Firstly, there is an occupation test. Check carefully who is in occupation. The occupier needs to be the exact company designated in the Regulations (the current names are shown in the Practice Note: Revaluation 2010 to this section) in order for any particular property not to be entered in the local list. The company registered from Companies House is a reliable cross-check. The company number is quoted on the Central Lists published on Gov.uk.

2) Companies are often (a) owned by other companies and/or (b) have subsidiary companies that may have very similar names to each other. Occupations of these related companies are not part of the central list assessments and should be entered in local lists. There are growing numbers of such related companies because utilities are branching out into other areas of business. Care is therefore needed to establish the identity of the company in occupation.

3) The Regulations for Network Rail Infrastructure Limited (NRIL) are different to the others because they include in the central list assessment not only the parts of the rail network that (a) NRIL occupy themselves but (b) parts that whilst owned by NRIL are occupied by companies that run passenger and freight services. It is important in respect of these latter occupations to make sure that NRIL own the properties concerned. See Appendix 1 to this section for workaid for NRIL cases.

4) Secondly, there is a use test. The Regulations for most classes limit the scope of the central list assessment to the purposes of the designated person (company) for example, railway purposes or acting as an electricity distributor or water undertaker. Because of this limitation there will be excepted hereditaments which although occupied by the designated person (company) are not used for the purposes that are needed for them to be included in the central list assessment.

5) Communication hereditaments are subtly different. The central list hereditament is defined as comprising property of specific nature. The concept of exception becomes unnecessary as communication properties of different nature are entered into relevant local lists.

6) Thirdly, whether a property is included in the central list depends on the occupation and use tests described above and not on whether it is operational land (but see paragraph below on offices for an exception to this rule). If however the property can be seen to be quite obviously operational land this may readily answer the occupation and use tests.

7) It is sometimes assumed that operational land is simply property used for the operations rather than the administration side of the company. This is a misconception that can lead to a wrong conclusion. For property to be operational land (whether land, buildings and structures) it must have the unique physical features that arise from its utility use, such as being a railway line, a water treatment works, or a gas compressor station.

8) The question of operational land is important as regards offices occupied by a designated person (company). Offices must be on operational land (for example, over a railway station or within a water treatment treatment works) to be included in the central list assessment. If they are situated in a normal commercial location (for example, a town centre or business park) they should be assessed in the local list.

NB In this section the initials CVO refer to the Central Valuation Officer and VO to local valuation officers.

The day-to-day administration of the central lists will be carried out on behalf of the CVO by the NVU Support Team based at Birmingham office and the Utilities Transport & Telecom team, to whom all enquiries should be directed in the first instance.

1.2 Structure of this Section

The main text of the section deals with the historical background and principles of the subject, together with matters such as responsibilities of officers and interpretation, which are of general application to the subject.

Matters which are specific to particular lists by reason of changes in legislation are dealt with in Practice Notes. Practice Notes dealing with specific technical questions concerning transition for the previous lists have been archived.