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22
The exceptions to the above statement arise in connection
with:—
(a) The Carpet Beating Factory, Elmers End. A complaint was
made during the year re the discharge of dye water from this
factory. This dye water no longer discharges into the stream.
It is now connected to and empties into the Sewer.
(b) The Croydon Sewage Farm. This Farm adjoins the boundary
of the District in the neighbourhood of the Elmers End Road,
and the effluent from the Farm discharges into the Chaffinch
Brook, which flows through the Manor House Ward and Kent
House Ward to discharge into the Poole River.
The effluent from the Farm is at times very unsatisfactory, as
the following report from the Public Analyst will confirm. Three
samples were recently taken from the stream where it enters the
Beckenham District, and the Analyst states that in respect of two
of these—"they are merely weak sewages."
The condition of the Sewage Farm at Elmers End has in the
past given rise to many complaints from suffering residents in its
vicinity. It has been the subject of frequent representations by
Beckenha'm to Croydon, and these in the year 1922 culminated in a
local enquiry by the Minister of Health, who, as a result, stated
that the complaints of Beckenham were well founded. Croydon at
this time, and indeed, on all occasions when representations were
made, promised to deal with the matter by erecting new machinery
which would abate the nuisance. They have carried out their
promises by laying down new plant in the form of screens, tanks,
and filter beds, but the effluent turned out is still unsatisfactory
from which I infer that the provision made is not yet adequate.
It may be that the heavy clay soil of the farm is not suited to
deal with sewage, or that the farm has not yet recovered from the
way in which it was overworked in the past. There is no doubt it
has been sewage-logged and the matter left exposed on the surface
has given rise to evil smells.