Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Report on the health of the Metropolitan Borough of Battersea for the year 1907
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During 1907, after a period of 18 months in which no further paving of this character was carried out, the following additional streets were dealt with :—
Square yards. | |
---|---|
Belfour Street | 907 |
Ponton Road | 735 |
Ponton Street | 193 |
Didcot Street | 583 |
Latchmere Grove | 2,520 |
Lithgow Street | 315 |
Radstock Street | 1,053 |
Thibet Street | 230 |
Wayford Street | 1,540 |
Winstead Street | 1,351 |
Eccles Road | 2,534 |
Spencer Road | 1,645 |
Sisters Avenue | 2,286 |
Total | 15,892 square yards |
It is to be hoped that the Council will continue to
carry out this useful work. Forming as they do the
playgrounds for the children who live in them, the
side streets in the poorer quarters of the Borough
are a danger, saturated as they must become with
polluted matter when not imperviously paved. During the
warm weather the dust, impregnated with germs of various
kinds, is blown in the open doors and windows of the houses,
contaminating milk and other foods which may happen to be
stored therein. Owing to its impervious nature, streets paved
with this material are much less likely to retain any polluted
matter than the ordinary macadam roadway. The rain washes
off impurities from the surface, instead of retaining them to a
considerable extent, as in the pervious roadway, and there is
consequently much less risk of infection, even when the weather
becomes dry, from the fact that less dust is formed on the
surface; and, in addition, they are much more readily scavenged.
I am of opinion therefore—although the Council's
experiment in this direction is in its infancy, so to speak—