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14
Applications have been made to the Board for a further extension
of the lighting in this division, viz., to the Canal Road leading over
the Canal Bridge from the Forest Hill Station, which was refused
on the ground that the road was a private one—a principle that has
since been departed from ; also to the road from the Railway Bridge
at Forest Hill, through Park Road to Stanstead Lane; and to the
road from Meadow Croft to Catford Bridge. These several applications
will receive further consideration in the course of the
summer.
During the present Session of Parliament the Crystal Palace District
Gas Company applied for an Act for their Incorporation, and
the bill contained a clause confining the district to be lighted by
the company within such limits as would not interfere with the
Phoenix and other old-established companies, and also clauses proposing
that in case of dispute as to the price of gas for lighting
public lamps, the question should be referred to two other Gas
Companies, and that the quality of the gas should only be tested
upon the requisition of five consumers to a magistrate, to appoint a
competent person for the purpose of making the test, and six hours'
notice to be given to the Company of the appointment. These provisions
were considered by the Board to be so adverse to the public
interest that they resolved to oppose the bill, and to seek the cooperation
of the Camberwell and Lambeth Vestries, parts of both
those parishes being lighted by the same Company. The Lambeth
Vestry joined the Board in their opposition to the bill, and the
negociations to which it gave rise resulted in the substitution of the
arbitration clauses of the Companies Clauses Act 1845, for the clause
referring disputes to other Gas Companies—and in giving to the
Board the same power as any five consumers—in reducing the notice
of the appointment of a person to test the gas from six to four hours,
and also in making such appointment compulsory with the magistrate,
instead of optional—provisions which are highly favourable to
the public interest, and a complete safeguard against such a course
as is being pursued by the Phoenix Company. In addition to such
clauses the Board proposed, and the Company conceded, that they
should be allowed at any time to test the gas by any of their own
officers, but the Committee of the House objected to this power being
given to the Board, and the clause was struck out.
The question of limiting the district to be lighted so as to prevent
competition, was considered to be more effectually dealt with in the
general question of the Metropolitan Gas Supply, in which it will
be seen the Board have felt it to be their duty to join.
Penge.
A numerously signed memorial by the Ratepayers of Penge,
requesting that the Hamlet should be lighted with gas, having