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66
Drainage Work.
The bye-laws of the London County Council that require that
plans and written particulars of drainage construction and alteration
shall be deposited with the Sanitary Authority, came into operation
in August, 1903, and from that date to the end of 1908 the Council
have approved of 310 plans for the drainage of new buildings, and
2976 plans for alterations, etc., to drains of existing premises.
During the year 1908, 911 notices of drainage reconstruction or
alteration were received, and in 652 cases the work necessitated the
deposit of plans and written particulars. In 438 of these latter
cases the work could not be delayed until the Council's approval of
the plans had been received; in each of these cases the prescribed
"urgency" notice was, therefore, submitted by the builders, the
work put in hand forthwith and the plans, etc., deposited at a later
date.
Of the 652 notices of drainage alterations, etc., requiring the
deposit of plans, 294 related to work that involved the entire
reconstruction of the drainage system. In 427 of the 652 drainage
cases the work was carried out voluntarily, the number of instances
in which voluntary complete reconstruction was carried out being
140. The voluntary work was chiefly done in connection with the
larger houses in Hampstead, and in many cases the voluntary
drainage reconstructions were of a very extensive character. The
supervision of work of this kind occupies much of the Inspectors'
time, and it is partly for this reason that it is found impossible to
carry out a systematic house-to-house inspection.
Combined Drainage.
In many of the metropolitan boroughs, considerable sums of
the ratepayers' money are expended every year in the repair of
combined drains, which by a legal technicality have become
"sewers" for which the ratepayers are responsible. Some idea of
the amount of public money expended in this way may be gathered
from the following table, which is extracted from a special report on
combined drainage by Mr. A. Powel Coke, Chief Clerk to the St.
Pancras Health Department. It should be stated, however, that this
table does not represent the whole expenditure, because it appears
that in some of the boroughs the cost under the head of combined
drainage has not been separated from the cost of the general maintenance
of sewers.