London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Battersea 1907

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 Street907
Ponton Road735
Ponton Street193
Didcot Street583
Latchmere Grove2,520
Lithgow Street315
Radstock Street1,053
Thibet Street230
Wayford Street1,540
Winstead Street1,351
Eccles Road2,534
Spencer Road1,645
Sisters Avenue2,286
Total15,892 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—