View report page

69
shafts both free and for a nominal charge, but up to the present
nothing whatever has been done to abate this nuisance. Undoubtedly
it must with truth be said that as far as nuisances of this
sort are concerned in this Borough, the London County Council
by means of their main sewerage system are the most serious
offenders.
The following is an illustration of the peculiar methods at
times adopted by the London County Council. This Council
has had a sewer passing along Wellington Road, Charlton, for
some time, and we have never received complaints with respect
to any offensive smells emanating from the surface manholes of
this sewer until the warm weather in the early part of the summer,
when serious complaints began to be made by residents and others
from this neighbourhood. The offensive emanations were readily
traced to an open surface manhole in the roadway, and as the
London County Council had recently taken into use their new
outfall sewer, which crosses this road, having at this spot a surface
ventilator in the roadway, it was thought that the smell came from
the new County Council outfall sewer. I immediately wrote to
the County Council officials drawing their attention to these
complaints, when they very quickly replied that the smells emanated
from our local sewer grating, and not from their surface
ventilator which was sealed up. This being such an unusual
condition of affairs for our local sewer, an investigation was made
and it seems that at the time the new outfall sewer, passing across
the Wellington Road, Charlton, below this Council's sewer which
passes along the road, was constructed, a vertical connection some
22 feet long was made from the lower new outfall sewer up into
the local Wellington Road sewer, this connection being made
entirely against the wish of this Council and their officers;