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64
During the year 1909, 880 notices of drainage reconstruction or
alteration were received, and in 733 cases the work necessitated the deposit
of plans and written particulars. In 525 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 733 notices of drainage alterations, etc., requiring the deposit
of plans, 286 related to work that involved the entire reconstruction of
the drainage system. In 451 of the 733 drainage cases the work was
carried out voluntarily, the number of instances in which voluntary complete
reconstruction was carried out being 135. 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.
During the year several claims were made by owners of property
that certain defective combined drains were not legally "drains," for
which the owners of the property were responsible, but "sewers," which
the Council were under obligation to repair at the cost of the ratepayers.
All these claims were successfully resisted.
In one of the cases the facts were so unusual as to deserve special
mention. In this case the matter arose in January, 1909, owing to the
stoppage of the drain of a house in Parliament Hill. When the
stoppage was removed it was found that the drain was so seriously
defective as to require reconstruction, and the owner of the house
claimed that this should be done by the Council at the cost of the ratepayers,
because the drain conveyed drainage from the adjoining house,
and was, therefore, in the eye of the law a "sewer." An inspection
was made of the premises and it was found that the drain did in fact
convey drainage from the adjoining house, the drainage consisting
of rain water and waste water from a bath-room that had been built at
the back of the premises. Reference was made to the original drainage
plans that were deposited in 1868, when the houses were built, and
these plans showed each house drained separately and not in combination.