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The Vestry of the Parish of Fulham.
REPORT OF THE NEW STREETS SURVEYOR,
FROM SEPTEMBER, 1889, TO MARCH, 1890.
New Streets Surveyor's Department,
Town Hall, Walham Green, S.W.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,
In accordance with the 198th section of the Metropolis Local
Management Act, 18 and 19 Vic., cap.120, I beg to present my first
Annual Report.
Having regard to the number of Streets laid out and not yet taken
to under compulsory powers, the Vestry considered it advisable to form
a separate Department to deal with New Streets. On the 12th September,
1889, I was appointed as Surveyor, and, on the 30th October, Messrs.
Cleghorn and Glass, as Assistants, and, on February 19th, Mr. Baker as
Clerk of Works.
At the time of my appointment there were 23 streets on the old list
ordered to be taken to. On the 2nd October, a View Committee
recommended the Vestry to take to 78, and since then, on application, the
Vestry have ordered 10, making a total of 111. There are still about 50
roads in the Parish not yet ordered to be taken to.
During the latter six months of the year, thirty-three plans and
apportionments were made and sealed by the Vestry, and contracts for
four roads were entered into.
A great many of the roads ordered to be taken to are old roads, or roads
that have been formed for a great many years, and by setting back on
either side to a width of 40 feet, and the erection of houses, the character
of these roads has been so changed as to constitute them New Streets,
within the meaning of the Act. The form of a great many of these roads
has been so materially altered as to make them almost of the same
character as a street formed across garden ground.
It has been the custom of the Vestry in the past not to apportion the
owners for the carriageways of these old roads, and the expense of making
them up to the new levels has been borne by the Parish.
There is a case in point—East End Road—where the Vestry have only
apportioned a strip of land that was thrown into the roadway to make it
40 feet wide, leaving the other portion untouched.
In setting out the levels for the new work, and giving the road the
proper contour, the new portion of the road was ten inches higher than
the old, necessitating the reconstruction of the old road, at a cost of
£139 10s., which will have to be borne by the Ratepayers, instead of the
Owners of Property abutting thereon.
I contend that where an old road, formerly 20 feet wide is made
40 feet (in accordance with the statute), and houses erected that road
has become a New Street, in the same sense as a New Street formed on
garden ground.
I am of opinion that the language of the 98 sec., 25 and 26 Vic., and
112 sec., 25 and 26 Vic., deals with the finding of a New Street. When a