View report page

10
Vict. c. 87, 25 & 26 Vict. c. 102, better known as the Metropolis Management
Amendment Act 1862, in part, viz., Section 46, so much of Sections
47 & 48 as relates to a sewer vested in the Board, Section 49, so much of
Section 62 as relates to reports by District Surveyors, Sections 98 & 99, and
The Metropolitan Building Act 1869.
I have on several occasions directed the attention of the Board to the
Sanitary Clauses of the two preceding Metropolitan Building Bills, which
had been prepared by the Metropolitan Board of Works; and as some alterations
appear to have been made in those Clauses in the Amended Bill, I have
deemed it advisable to bring them again under the notice of the Board.
The most important of those Clauses are those relating to light and
ventilation, the height of rooms, and the walls and foundations of houses
intended to be inhabited.
The Seventh Schedule in the Bill enacts that all rooms constructed to
be inhabited shall be lighted and ventilated directly from the outside, and
unless all the rooms in a dwelling house above the ground or entrance storey
can be lighted and ventilated directly from a street or public place or from
ground adjoining and appropriated to the Building or TO IT IN COMMON
WITH OTHEES, shall at all times have in the rear or on one side thereof,
or partly in the rear and partly on one side thereof, an open space belonging
to such building to the extent of one hundred square feet at least, and the
distance across such open space between such building and the opposite
building or ground at the rear or side shall in all cases be ten feet throughout
its whole height. The words "in common with others" are very
ambiguous. The words ought to be "exclusively belonging to such
building."
Although this Clause may satisfactorily provide for an open space at
the rear or side of a dwelling house, it does not enact that a window in
every storey of such house shall open into such open space. Neither does
it provide for the thorough ventilation of a house when the rooms of such
house can be lighted from the front, or in other words it does not prohibit
the building of houses back to back. Neither does it provide for the ventilation
of the stair-cases and passages of a dwelling house. It is most
earnestly to be desired that the words "at all times" in this Clause will
effectually prevent such additions from being made to houses as may
incroach upon the open space of 100 square feet provided at the rear or side
of the house.
As regards the height of rooms, an additional foot in height is provided
in the Amended Bill. In the Bill of 1867 seven feet only were deemed as
being sufficient for an inhabited room, but in the present Bill a height of
8 feet at least is required. In my opinion no room in a house should be
less than 8 feet in height.