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165
question of the Council's pliability for the combined drain as a
"sewer," but no notices were jserved by the Inspector. The
Council decided to resist any claim made against them for combined
drainage 011 the grounds that (l)tthe work was voluntary,
(2) the drain had been broken into by the owner and not as the
result of a notice served, (3) the conditions found, viz.: clayjointed
pipes not laid 011 concrete, were not necessarily a
nuisance, and (4) that the premises were unoccupied and that,
consequently, the Council's officers had 110 official locus standi.
It would be manifestly unfair that an owner should be permitted
to carry out voluntary work, and simply because, in the
course of such voluntary work, he finds a combined drain not
constructed up to modern requirements, to call upon the Sanitary
Authority to reconstruct such combined drain, on the ground
that it is a "sewer."
(b) In connection with a combined drain in course of reconstruction
by the owners at 131 and 133, Paulet Road, a gully
drain from 133, Paulet Road was disconnected by the builder
under the order of the Ssnitary Inspector, on account of the
sealed gully connected therewith not being water-tight when the
final water test was applied to the drainage system. The owner
of 133, Paulet Road promised in a letter that the gully in the
cellar of his house should be "sealed over with slate and cement,
so as to stand the water test, and afterwards, left so sealed," but
this promise was not kept. With the gully not sealed down
there was a danger to the ihealth of the inmates of the house
should the gully drain connected therewith be re-connected to
the combined system, for, in the event of such gully being dry,
there would be an escape of drain air, and, in the event of the
combined drain being blocked, or choked, with sewage, there
would be an escape of sewage into the cellar of 133, Paulet Road.
The Council was threatened in a letter (dated 8th May, 1907)
with an action for damages and for depriving the owner of
133 Paulet Road of his easement, and for committing a trespass