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37
SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Section C.
l. WATER SUPPLY.
The Metropolitan Water Board is responsible for the
public water supply in the Borough. Throughout the year 1948,
the water supply proved quite satisfactory as to both quality
and quantity.
There is a piped supply of water throughout the
Borough. No complaints regarding the water supply were received
during 1948. This is not surprising, as the chemists and
bacteriologists of the Water Board carry out extensive and
thorough examinations of the raw water (derived from the River
Thames) before treatment, and further examinations are made
during the purification processes until finally, complete tests
are made of the water as it enters the supply mains.
In the majority of cases, houses are provided with a
tap off the rising main for a supply of drinking water, and
where, upon inspection, such a tap is not found, steps are taken
to bring about this desirable improvement.
The public water supply in this Borough is hard and
is not liable to plumbo-solvent action. It was not necessary
during 1948 to consult the Water Board's Officers regarding the
supply.
There are over 11,000 inhabited premises in the Borough
all of which, with the exception of four, have the benefit of a
water supply from the public mains. The four houses without
a piped supply rely entirely upon water derived from shallow
wells. There are two other houses supplied with well water, but
these two houses are also provided with a piped supply from the
Board's mains.
There are two further known shallow wells, but these
supply water, for industrial use only, to premises within the
Borough. There were, therefore, only eight premises in all,
known to be supplied with well water at the end of 1948, compared
with thirteen at the end of 1947, the reduction in number
being due to continued efforts to have the potentially dangerous
shallow well water supply discontinued, in favour of the safe
public supply.
There is only one small group of cottages (in a
potential obsolescent area) supplied with water by means of
standpipe.
2. DRAINAGE AND SEWERAGE.
Owing to the erection of the New Power Station on the
site of the old Sewage Purification Works, and the consequent
removal of filter beds, it was necessary to continue to
specially treat and chlorinate the sewage before it could be
discharged into the river. This process continued up to March
1948 when the new pumping main from the Sewage Works in Downhall
Road to the head of the main sewer on the Hampton Wick side of
the river, was completed and put into commission. Prom Broom
Road, Teddington, the sewage is conveyed by gravitation to the
West Middlesex Main Drainage Board's Works at Mogden, where it
is treated and purified.