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120
No. 14 District.
There are 68 private houses partially used as workshops, most of the workshops
small, in such roads as Amhurst Road, Downs Park Road, Shacklewell
Lane, St. Mark's Road, Colvestone Crescent, and Kingsland High Street. Private
houses have been converted into factories in Colvestone Crescent (5), Anton
Street (4), and Mountford Road (1). This last is only a partial conversion, part
of the premises being used as a dwelling. Factories and workshops have been
built in gardens or yards in Bodney Road (1), Bradbury Street (2), High Street,
Kingsland (2), Mare Street (1), Amhurst Road (8), Stoke Newington Road (4),
and Shacklewell Lane (1). In Tyssen Street a new factory has been built on
vacant land too near the backs of dwelling houses. This district, still largely
residential, is becoming increasingly industrial.
POWERS OF LOCAL SANITARY AUTHORITY.
OFFENSIVE TRADES.—Considerable powers exist with regard to trades
scheduled as "offensive" under the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, and the
establishment of such a business can be opposed by the Borough Council, as a
licence is required from the County Council before establishment, and to carry
on such a business without a licence is in itself an offence, nuisance need not
be proved. For instance, it was proposed last year to establish the business of a
dresser of fur skins at 69a, Downs Park Road in rooms over a garage, the windows
looking out over public thoroughfares, with no ground adjoining upon which to
place the refuse receptacles other than public thoroughfares; there were also other
objections. Machinery had been installed and considerable money spent before
the case was heard by the County Council on June 14th, 1928, when the application
to establish the business was opposed by the Borough Council and a
licence refused by the County Council. Objection was also made in May, 1928,
by the Borough Council and others, to the extension of the business of a dresser
of fur skins in High Street, Homerton. The owners did not proceed with the
extension. This business was established many years ago, a private maternity
home and grounds being converted and the business extended by the acquisition of
a neighbouring housing property. This factory is separated from the neighbouring
houses only by the tiny yards or gardens extending a few feet of the
houses. At one house the tenant has blocked up ventilation gratings to part of
the factory by placing boards in his garden. Eighteen such offensive businesses
have been established in Hackney in converted houses.
FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS.
Apart from the few trades scheduled as “ offensive,” all of which deal with
animal products, no indication of the character of the trade need be given before
establishing a factory or workshop; all that is required is that a plan of drainage
should be approved by the Borough Council and provisions dealing with the safe
erection of the building carried out. Houses can be adapted, and factories and
workshops erected in back gardens as a speculation, and disposed of to an owner
who receives notices to comply with the Factory and Workshop Act and Regulations
immediately he engages his workpeople and discloses the nature of his
trade. Workshops and factories are established in this way, and unsuitable
proposals put forward for permitting workpeople to use public lavatories or the
conveniences of adjoining houses, and a great deal of unnecessary difficulty and
expense may be caused by the necessity for enforcing sanitary requirements after
the establishment of a business.
Even where the arrangements are ostensibly satisfactory, and it is, shall I
say, possible, at any rate, to carry on without infringing any statute, where an
unsuitable building is adapted or the neighbourhood is unsuitable, difficulties arise,