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187
NUISANCE FROM GAS WORKS.
Complaints were received during the year of nuisance
from the gas works at Kensal-green—a subject fully dealt with
in the annual report for 1894 (page 166). There can be no
doubt as to the genuineness of the complaints, which receive
confirmation from Willesden, the inhabitants of that district
suffering when Kensington people have no ground for complaint,
and vice versa; the incidence of nuisance varying with
change in the direction of the wind. The matter having
been referred to the law and parliamentary committee, they
reported that—
"By section 29 of the Gas Works Clauses Act, 1847, which applies to the
Gas Light and Coke Company, the company is not to be exempted from
indictment for nuisance, or any other legal proceeding to which they may
be liable in consequence of making or supplying gas; and in a case
decided in 1877, it was held that a gas company was not entitled to
create a nuisance in exercising their statutory powers or in carrying out
their statutory obligations (Attorney-General v. Gas Light and Coke
Company, 7 Ch. D. 217.")
The committee therefore advised the sanitary committee
that—
"If there be evidence of a substantial public nuisance caused by the Gas
Light and Coke Company, the Vestry are entitled to proceed by indictment,
or for an injunction to secure its abatement."
Your Vestry accordingly addressed a communication to
the company intimating that observation would be kept up,
so that on any recurrence of the nuisance proceedings might be
instituted in regard thereto. A reply was received to the
effect that, while objectionable smells did proceed at times
from the company's works at Kensal-green—such smells
being caused by the elimination of sulphur impurities from
the gas, according to the stringent requirements of the metropolitan
gas referees—every known appliance for the prevention
of nuisance was adopted by them. It was suggested that the
gas referees be communicated with, with a view to a visit