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34
Combined Drainage.— Three systems of combined
drainage, for the maintenance of which the Council
were liable, as there was no evidence that the houses had
been drained by a combined operation under an order or
with the approval of the Council or their predecessors,
were reconstructed by the Council at a cost of
£161 3s. 9d. and the sum of £25 was paid to an owner
for the expense he had been put to in repairing a house
drain which was a "sewer" within the meaning of the
Metropolis Management Act.
Flooding of Basements.—The attention of the London
County Council has been repeatedly drawn to the grave
nuisance caused by the flooding of basements in all parts
of the borough with sewage after heavy rainfall, owing
to the incapacity of County Council's main sewers to deal
with even a moderately heavy rainfall, especially when
occurring at high tide. A storm on September 11th
again resulted in a large number of basements being
flooded with sewage, which deposited after the subsidence
of the water a quantity of filth on and beneath the floors.
A deputation of the Borough Council with deputations
from the Hammersmith and Kensington Councils waited
on the Main Drainage Committee of the L.C.C., and
urged the immediate carrying out of the proposed
scheme of works, with the view to the prevention of
flooding in the low-lying area of the west of London.
The remedial measures proposed provide for the construction
of a sewer about a mile in length having
an outlet to the river near Hammersmith Bridge,
together with a new pumping station near the outfall.
A tender for the construction of the sewer was accepted
by the L.C.C. in December, and the work is now in
progress. It is anticipated that the sewer will be
completed in about a year, but the building of the pumping
station and the installation of the machinery will
probably take from two to three years. This will
doubtless reduce the number of floodings, but it is
probable that after exceptionally heavy rains low-lying
basements in Fulham will still suffer.