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Saint Pancras, London.
HEALTH DEPARTMENT.
Vestry Hall,
Pancras Road, N.W.
10th February, 1897.
TO THE HEALTH COMMITTEE OF THE VESTRY OF ST. PANCRAS.
Mr. Chairman, Madam, and Gentlemen,
Open Spaces about Buildings
I beg to call the serious attention of your Health Committee and of the
Vestry to the fact that there is a prospect that in course of time the whole of
the open spaces about buildings may disappear. At the present moment plans
are being submitted for the approval of the drainage of premises proposed to be
newly erected or re-erected. These plans show the whole of the ground area
of the premises entirely covered in, and upon consulting legal references it
appears that more recent changes in the building laws permit this course to be
adopted, a course, the ultimate result of which will be a most serious matter
for the health of London.
In the Metropolitan Building Act, 1855, by Section 29 it was provided that
every building used or intended to be used as a dwelling-house, unless all the
rooms can be lighted and ventilated from a street or alley adjoining, shall have
in the rear, or on the side thereof, an open space exclusively belonging thereto
of the extent, at least, of an hundred square feet.
In the Metropolis Management and Building Acts (Amendment) Act, 1882,
by Section 14 it was provided that every new building on a new site, intended
to be used wholly or partly as a dwelling-house, shall have directly attached,
and in the rear, an open space exclusively belonging thereto of at least one
hundred and fifty square feet, increasing according to the length of frontage
to a maximum requirement of four hundred and fifty square feet, but the open
space was expressly permitted to be entirely covered in up to the level of the
ceiling of the ground floor story.
In the London Building Act, 1894, although by Section 40 it is provided
that a new domestic building, with a habitable basement, shall have an
open space of not less than one hundred square feet (going back to the requirement
of 1855), and that it may be erected upon up to the level of the
adjoining pavement (going back to the requirment of 1882), yet in a new
domestic building abutting upon an old street, and this includes houses to
be rebuilt, that is, it applies to all London Streets existing at the commencement