3. For any other purposes of this Act, the Local Government Board may, by provisional order, form such districts or contributory places into a united district.
All costs, charges, and expenses of and incidental to the formation of a united district are, in the event of the united district being formed, to be a first charge on the rates leviable in the united district in pursuance section 279 of the Public Health Act.
Notice of the provisional order must be made public in the locality; and should the union be carried out, the incidental expenses thereto are a first charge on the sanitary rates of the united district. A united district is governed by a joint board consisting of such ex officio, and of such number of elective members as the provisional order determines.
The business arrangements of the joint board differ little from those of a sanitary authority.
The joint board is a body corporate having a name—determined by the provisional order—a perpetual succession, and a common seal, and having power to acquire and hold lands without any licence in mortmain. The joint board has only business and power in matters for which it has been formed. With the exception of these special objects, the component
districts continue as before to exercise independent powers.
Nevertheless, the joint board may delegate to the sanitary authority of any component district the exercise of any of its powers, or the performance of any of its duties (Public Health Act, sec. 281).
Sanitary authorities and districts may be also combined for the execution and maintenance of works, for the prevention of epidemic diseases, as well as for the purpose of appointing a medical officer of health. Districts when once formed are not fixed and unvariable, the Local Government Board having the most extensive powers over the alterations of areas.
1. The Local Government Board, by provisional order, may dissolve any local government district, and may merge any such district in some other district, or may declare the whole or any portion of a local government or a rural district immediately adjoining a local government district to be included in such last mentioned district, or may declare any portion of a local government district immediately adjoining a rural district to be included in such last-mentioned district; and thereupon the included area shall, for the purposes of the Public Health Act, be deemed to form part of the district in which it is included in such order; and the remaining part (if any) of such local government district or rural district affected by such order, shall continue subject to the like jurisdiction as it would have been subject to if such order had not been made, unless and until the Local Government Board by provisional order otherwise directs.
2. In the case of a borough comprising within its area the whole of an improvement act district, or having an area coextensive with such district, the Local Government Board, by provisional order, may dissolve such district, and transfer to the council of the borough, all or any of the jurisdiction and powers of the improvement commissioners of such district, remaining vested in them at the time of the passing of the Public Health Act.