Section 2(2) was repealed by the Fire Safety and Safety of Places of Sport Act 1987, section 19, which gave power to the Secretary of State to lay down, by order, terms and conditions. No order has yet been made and guidance from the Home Office has recommended local authorities to approach their function under section 2(1) in accordance with the criteria in the repealed section 2(2). (See Home Office Circular 71/1987 dated 25 November 1987, Annex A, paragraph 6.)
145.145. It is clear that when the certificate was first issued the South Yorkshire County Council went further than simply to fix the maximum numbers for the whole Stadium. They prescribed figures for each part of the ground not merely by the four points of the compass but by specified sections.
146. Section 8(1) of the 1975 Act requires the holder of the certificate before carrying out any proposals to alter or extend the stadium or any of its installations while a Safety Certificate is in operation to give notice of those proposals to the local authority. That obligation is specifically repeated in Sheffield Wednesday's certificate at Schedule 2 Paragraph 5(2). The Club complied with the requirement. Having received notice of the alterations to the pens and the barriers, the local authority ought, in my view, to have amended the Safety Certificate accordingly. They did not do so.
Why was the Safety Certificate not Amended?
147. Although Dr Eastwood acknowledged that the various changes to the layout would have had an effect on capacity, he did not take active steps to see that appropriate amendments were made. He says he mentioned from time to time that the alterations would have an effect on capacity and that he did not realise the Safety Certificate was not regularly updated. However, I find two memoranda in early 1987 highly significant. Dr Eastwood's assistant Mr Strange was concerned with queries from the FA as to Hillsborough's capacity for a semi-final. Mr Strange recorded these questions in a memorandum:-
"Has any account been taken for alterations done on Leppings Lane over the last few seasons? Is the 10,200 or so figure still correct? I said that in my opinion it needs to be adjusted, better do it now than later."
148. Mr Strange's next memo (a few days later) records as follows:-
"Dr Eastwood says leave the capacity at Leppings Lane end as it is, providing police have gates under West stand open so that people can distribute throughout the terrace evenly."
Although he says the last nine words do not report him accurately, Dr Eastwood accepts the rest of that message.
149. In my view the provisions as to capacity in the Safety Certificate ought to have been reviewed and altered. The unhappy situation is that the police believed even the overall figure of 10,100 to be too high as far back as 1981. That was reported to the Club but apparently not to Dr Eastwood. Meanwhile, that global figure had been rendered academic by the sub-division of the terrace which was not reflected in the Safety certificate at all. If proper maximum figures had been inserted in the certificate for each of the pens, the Club and the police might well have been prompted to find some means of limiting the numbers entering those pens other than by visual monitoring. This could have been done by implementing one of Dr Eastwood's plans for totally separate sections, turnstile to viewing area. It could have been done by insisting on sequential filling of pens at all matches; alternatively, by counting fans into each viewing area.
The City Council
150. That the Safety Certificate was not amended and individual capacities not reviewed cannot be laid solely at Dr Eastwood's door. He was, after all, consultant engineer to the Club and responsibility for the certificate was that of the local authority. When the South Yorkshire County Council handed over to the Sheffield City Council, the latter delegated all its powers and duties under the 1975 Act to its General Purposes Panel. Apparently, therefore, the decision-making body on behalf of the Council was that Panel, although two specific functions were delegated to the Head of Administration and Legal Department - the power to issue a prohibition under section 10 of the 1975 Act and the power of entry and search under section 11 of the Act.
151. In practice, Mr Bownes, the Council's Chief Licensing Officer in the Administration and Legal Department, bore the brunt of the Council's duties under the Act.
