View report page

16
To the Sanitary Committee.
Gentlemen,
With reference to the purpose of your meeting this evening, I
beg to remind you that the bad condition of the unmade, or newly
formed, roads of the Parish has, from time to time, and for many
years past, been a fruitful subject for complaint, especially during
the winter season. The question is, therefore, no new one to the
Sanitary Committee who, in exceptionally bad cases, have frequently
recommended the Highways' Committee, they having the charge of
the making of these roads, to give precedence to such places. So far
as I am aware no proceedings have ever been taken on the ground
of nuisance, nor do I know that you as a committee have ever
deviated from this course.
So recently as February 1st, 1875, upon my recommendation,
the Committee passed a resolution suggesting to the Highways'
Committee, that the making of the Upper Cottenham Road should
be proceeded with without delay.
As, however, it is now urged upon the Committee that some
steps other than this should be taken, I deem it my duty to lay my
opinions before you in writing, in respect to this particular road, so
that no misapprehension can arise as to the ground I am compelled
to take.
The Upper Cottenham Road is an unmade road, muddy as
unmade roads must be: and in as disgraceful a state, as an unmade
muddy road could possibly be in wet weather. At this season of
the year, of course, the mud accumulates, and, in this particular
instance, accumulates in the centre of the roadway, from which it
is scraped to the sides where it lies in heaps; and I would direct
your attention to the fact that these heaps become in time solid hard
mud banks.
I am far from saying that objectionable smells may not have
been at times noticeable by other persons, but I am bound to say
that I have myself upon several occasions visited this road, without
being able to discover any smell or stink from it, with one single
exception, and that exception was at one spot near the bridge on
the occasion of the visit of the Committee on Wednesday last.