b'Lord Lowry, delivering the leading judgment in the Richmond case, said that it was one thing to say that the giving of advice facilitated the discharge of the Councils planning functions, but it was quite another to say that for the Council to charge for that advice also facilitated or was conducive or incidental to those functions. In other words, the charging for pre-application planning advice was incidental to the incidental function of providing that advice and charging was not, therefore, authorised by section 111. This interpretation of section 111 was unremarkable and followed the line taken by the House of Lords in the interest rate swaps case, Hazell v Hammersmith and Fulham LBC (1991) 2 WLR 372 (the Hammersmith case). Unfortunately for local authorities their Lordships did not stop there. They went on to reject the Court of Appeals view that there was a distinction to be drawn between obligatory services and those provided at the discretion of the authority on a take it or leave it basis upon the payment of a reasonable fee. Lord Lowry saidthe rule is that a charge cannot be made unless the power to charge is given by express words or by necessary implication. Lord Lowry based his judgment on the words of Lord Atkin in the case of Attorney General v Wilts United Dairies Ltd (1921) 37 TLR 884. In this case, a statutory body known as the Food Controller had been set up to control the supply of food and other commodities scarce as a result of wartime shortages. The Food Controller attempted to levy a charge on dairies for the grant of a licence to supply milk to certain areas. This particular commodity (ie milk) would have been regarded by many as a necessity during times of privation and it is not surprising that the court in this case took a strict line in unmasking the charge as an unlawful tax. Whilst the Court of Appeal in the Richmond case distinguished the Wilts United Dairies case on its facts, the House of Lords were not similarly convinced. They said that even if the Council were merely to state that they were willing to provide the service for a reasonable fee, as if entering into a contract, this would be unlawful and contrary to the Wilts United Dairies ruling. Lord Lowry was not impressed either with the council citing instances which, without any express authority, it seemed obvious to Lord Lowry that a charge could properly be made. By way of example, he stated that merely because the council could receive payment for redundant motor vehicles it did not follow that it could, without statutory authority, charge for a service. The power to sell redundant vehicles necessarily implied, in Lord Lowrys view, that in the interest of council taxpayers the council was able to recover from a commercial transaction the return which any seller would expect to receive, as a normal incidence of local government administration. He also gave judicial approval to the councils practice of charging for conference facilities stating that: [T]his, on the assumption that it is a legitimate activity, has the character of conducting a business, and it would be a strange and unjust result if those who enjoyed the use of the facilities provided were to do so at the expense of the ratepayers or their modern equivalent. It is unfortunate that the House of Lords took such a narrow view of local authorities powers in this case, but in so doing it was being consistent with the approach taken by the court in other judgments concerning the ultra vires doctrine, see for example, Allsop v North Tyneside 37'