View report page

SCAVENGING OP PRIVATE PASSAGES AND ACCOMMODATION ROADS
The Public Health Inspectors made 489 inspections or re-inspections of private
passages or accommodation roads.
Very few of such passages, etc., have been taken over and are scavenged by the
Council. The scavenging of the great majority remains the responsibility, under the
Public Health Act, 1936, of the occupiers of the premises to which the passage or
road affords access. Most of the accommodation roads have to be repeatedly visited
by the Inspectors to deal with accumulations of rubbish left outside premises.
Proper scavenging is frequently impracticable, the roads being unpaved and at times
an insanitary quagmire after heavy rain. Sections of road at the rear of premises
having no access to the road have to be scavenged jointly by the occupiers of those
premises with access. This, of course, usually results in these sections of road
receiving no attention unless pressure is brought to bear by the Public Health Inspectors.
Rubbish is also dumped at times by unknown outsiders, causing great
annoyance to shopkeepers, etc., when they are called upon to arrange and pay for its
removal.
On nine occasions it became necessary for the Council to carry out the work of
scavenging a road or passage in default, and to proceed to recover the cost from the
occupiers of the premises concerned. In one instance proceedings had to be ta jn
in the Magistrate's Court to recover the expense.
A further problem arises in the usually 3-feet wide passages between the rear
gardens of houses which are used by the refuse collectors for the removal of refuse
from the houses. Neglected fences are sometimes allowed to lean or collapse over
the passages, or trees to overhang, so obstructing the refuse collectors in their
work, sometimes to an extent that the use of the passage has to be discontinued
and refuse collection made from the front of the houses through which the full bins
have to be carried by the householders.
Much is done informally by the Public Health Inspectors to deal with the owners
of the fences and trees but there does not appear to be any satisfactory statutory
power under the Public Health Acts to require them to keep the passages unobstructed.
The only satisfactory remedy to deal with this problem of private accommodation
roads and passages is, in my opinion, the making up of them under Part IX of the
Highways Act, 1959, and the'- subsequent maintenance and scavenging by the Council.
Records show that this is the procedure which the Public Health Department has
been urging since 1930, but little progress has been made in doing so.
PEST AND VERMIN CONTROL
During the year, 541 inspections and 322 re-inspections were made of premises
by the Public-Health Inspectors in connection with the control of a wide variety of
63