Metrology Act, 1996

Public equipment for weighing or measuring.

26.—(1) No person shall attend to any weighing or measuring of any article, vehicle, vessel or animal by means of weighing or measuring equipment available for use by the public, being a weighing or measuring demanded by a member of the public and for which a charge is made, unless that person holds a certificate of competency to do so from the Director.

(2) Any person who contravenes, or who causes or permits any other person to contravene subsection (1) shall be guilty of an offence.

(3) Without prejudice to any functions conferred or imposed by any other enactment, a local authority, being a County Council or County Borough Corporation, may provide and maintain within their area for use by the public such weighing or measuring equipment as may appear to the authority to be expedient.

(4) Without prejudice to the provisions of any other Act, and subject to subsection (1), a local authority may employ persons to attend to any weighing or measuring by means of equipment provided by that authority for use by the public.

(5) Except in the case of a weighing or measuring for which the charge falls to be regulated from time to time by some other person, a local authority or any other person by whom any weighing or measuring equipment is provided for use by the public may make appropriate charges for any weighing or measuring by means of that equipment.

(6) Subsection (7) shall apply where any article, vehicle (unloaded or loaded) or animal has been brought for weighing or measuring by means of weighing or measuring equipment which is available for use by the public and is provided for the purpose of weighing or measuring articles, vehicles or animals of the description in question.

(7) Any person appointed to attend to weighing or measuring by means of public weighing or measuring equipment who—

(a) without reasonable cause fails to carry out the weighing or measuring on demand, or

(b) carries out the weighing or measuring unfairly, or

(c) fails to deliver to the person demanding the weighing or measuring or to his or her agent a statement in writing of the weight or other measurement found, or

(d) fails to make a record of the weighing or measuring including the time and date thereof and, in the case of the weighing of a vehicle or vessel, such particulars of the vehicle or vessel and of any load thereon as will identify it and its load,

shall be guilty of an offence.

(8) If in connection with any such equipment any person—

(a) appointed to attend to weighing or measuring by means of the equipment delivers a false statement of any weight or other measurement found or makes a false record of any weighing or measuring, or

(b) commits any fraud in connection with any, or any purported, weighing or measuring by means of that equipment,

shall be guilty of an offence.

(9) If in the case of a weighing or measuring of any article, vehicle, vessel or animal carried out by means of such equipment as aforesaid, the person bringing it for weighing or measuring, on being required by the person attending to the weighing or measuring, to give his or her name and address fails to do so, or gives a name or address which is incorrect, shall be guilty of an offence.

(10) (a) The person making any such weighing or measuring equipment available for use by the public shall retain for a period of not less than one year any record of any weighing or measuring by means of that equipment made by any person appointed to attend thereto, and the Director or any inspector appointed under this Act subject to the production if so requested of his or her certificate of appointment, may require the first-mentioned person to produce any such record for inspection at any time while it is so retained;

(b) a person who fails so to retain or produce any such record, or wilfully destroys or defaces any such record before the expiration of one year from the date when it was made, shall be guilty of an offence.