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93
The new by-law, in effect, requires peat refuse to be removed under the same conditions
as other offensive matter. It is satisfactory that the views approved by the late Yestry, in
regard to the storage and removal of this material should have so far prevailed; but it is to be
regretted that the Council did not see their way to adopt the views set out in these reports with
regard to the removal of fish offal, and other like refuse, in the shop receptacles, rather than in
tank-vans.
It may be mentioned that the Public Health Committee of the County Council, in their
report on the new by-law, stated that the Local Government Board did not " see their way to
allow removal of offensive matter either during the night or during hours of the day, when the
streets are crowded, especially during the heat of summer." They added that "the extension
of hours would be of substantial benefit, although it would not remove all the difficulties
" to which their attention had been called, and which "could only be overcome by allowing
removal during the night," a course to which the Board " object, as it is then impossible to see
that the refuse is not slopped or spilled, and that the vehicles conveying it are properly covered."
In a circular letter to the Borough Councils (May 9th, 1901), the Council stated that a
protest had been made to the Local Government Board against the amended by-laws, by firms
engaged in the collection of bones and fat from the shops of butchers and marine store dealers, on
the ground that the hours proposed were too limited to enable them properly to carry on their business.
For my own part, I see no objection to removal at any time, if only proper precautions be
taken; but preferably refuse should be removed in the evening after business hours. I have
never seen any reason to modify the views, expressed, originally, in my annual report for 1887
(pp. 176-189 inclusive), and, with less detail, in the annual report for 1900 (page 58); the main
point being that, as regards refuse, it should be removed in the storage vessels instead of, as
now, in tank vans, into which the refuse is tipped, nuisance often being caused by spilling and
slopping. These views, which had been approved by the Sanitary Committee and the late
Yestry, were communicated to the County Council, as they had been to the late Metropolitan
Board of Works in 1887.
THE COUNTER'S CREEK SEWER.
Several complaints were reported to the Public Health Committee last year,
with reference to offensive smells emanating from the Counter's-creek sewer,
in different parts of its course from North Kensington to Lot's-road, Chelsea. This
sewer which, south of Kensington High-street, is upwards of eight feet in diameter, is vested
in the London County Council, with which body the late Yestry and the Council have had
many communications arising out of complaints of smells, and also of the flooding of basements
of houses at times of great and rapid rainfall. With respect to the smells, a memorial was
addressed to the Council by numerous parishioners residing at South-row and adjoiniug streets
in the Kensal Town district, taken over, in November, 1900, from Chelsea. The sewer in Southrow,
a branch of the Counter's Creek sewer, receives the drainage of the Queen's Park estate
(the portion of the Kensal Town district which was transferred from Chelsea to Paddington), a
circumstance to which the memorialists attribute the " increase of fever " which they erroneously
alleged to exist in the locality. By direction of the Public Health Committee, a communication
was addressed to the County Council embodying the complaint of the memorialists, together
with my report thereon; and with a request that steps might be taken to remedy the evil by
shaft ventilation of the sewer in South-row, closure of the ventilators at road level, and trapping
of the street gullies. Certain ameliorative works have since been carried out, with what result
remains to be seen.
Another locality in regard to which complaints were received is Warwick-road, between
the railway bridge and the south end of Philbeach-gardens. Here, there is a circular ventilating
opening to the sewer, the invert of which is 29 feet below the road level. The excessive
offensiveness of the effluvia at this position, it has been suggested, may be due to a constriction
of the sewer (underneath the railway, and about 56 feet south of the ventilator) to the extent of
about one-seventeenth of its area, which was made when the District Railway was in course of
construction. A segment, fifteen inches in depth, was removed from the crown and the side
walls were carried up vertically to the under side of iron plates below the rail level. In accordance
with the instructions of the Public Health Committee the Borough Engineer prepared
sections (see reduced copy at page 94*), which better than any verbal description show the
effect of the alteration. To what extent, if at all, the constriction accounts for the effluvium
nuisance I am unable to say.
*It will be seen that the sewer, in cross section at the point indicated resembles the letter U. The projection into the
sewe", due to the constriction, is 15 inches deep by a length of 81 feet.