View report page

73
in August, 1903, and from that date to the end of 1907 the Council
have approved of 262 plans for the drainage of new buildings, and
2324 plans for alterations, etc., to drains of existing premises.
During the year 714 notices of drainage reconstruction or
alteration were received, and in 555 cases the work necessitated the
deposit of plans and written particulars. In 381 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 555 notices of drainage alterations, etc., requiring the
deposit of plans, 272 related to work that involved the entire
reconstruction of the drainage system. In 353 of the 555 drainage
cases the work was carried out voluntarily, the number of instances
in which voluntary complete reconstruction was carried out being
130. 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.
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.
In Hampstead, fortunately, no loss of public money occurred
in this way during 1907. Many claims were made but all were
successfully resisted.
In two cases the claimants carried the matter to the Courts
before they could be convinced that their claims against the Council
could not be maintained. Both these cases call for special mention,
as each raised a point of unusual interest. The first case was heard
at the County of London Sessions on July 12th, before Mr. Robert
Wallace, K.C. and the other Justices. It was an appeal against a
decision of Mr. Plowden, who found that the combined drain at