Recovery of costs of new connections
38.—(1) Where any apparatus of a public utility undertaker or of a public communications provider is removed under article 37 (statutory undertakers and electronic communications code network operators) any person who is the owner or occupier of premises to which a supply was given from that apparatus is entitled to recover from the undertaker compensation in respect of expenditure reasonably incurred by that person, in consequence of the removal, for the purpose of effecting a connection between the premises and any other apparatus from which a supply is given.
(2) Paragraph (1) does not apply in the case of the removal of a public sewer but where such a sewer is removed under article 37, any person who is—
(a)the owner or occupier of premises the drains of which communicated with that sewer; or
(b)the owner of a private sewer which communicated with that sewer,
is entitled to recover from the undertaker compensation in respect of expenditure reasonably incurred by that person, in consequence of the removal, for the purpose of making the drain or sewer belonging to that person communicate with any other public sewer or with a private sewage disposal plant.
(3) In this article—
“public communications provider” has the same meaning as in section 151(1) (interpretation of chapter 1) of the 2003 Act; and
“public utility undertaker” has the same meaning as in the 1980 Act.