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6o
The paving laid by the Vestry in the Mile End and Commercial Roads
has not yet required any repairs, except where openings have been
made. These works, executed in the year 1873, will therefore pay a
good interest upon the outlay as compared with the cost of macadamising
them.
A contract is now in course of execution for paving the roadway of
Stepney Iligh Street and the footway of Stepney Green and Commercial
Road.
I would strongly advise that a certain portion of the footways of the
main thoroughfares should be replaced with new stone every year. By
this means large outlays in one year will become unnecessary, and the
present ratepayers will be bearing their proper proportion of the
maintenance of the roads of the Hamlet. It must be remembered that
money cannot be readily obtained for paving roads which are already
paved, or for which money has once been borrowed.
Unless a proper proportion of the footways are repaved every year it
must necessarily follow that occasionally large sums have to be
expended for paving works; the money raised by loan, the largest
portion of the interest of which has to be paid by the ratepayers who
live in the Hamlet at that time.
The necessity of paving some of the most important streets in the
Hamlet has been recently under your consideration, and I cannot too
strongly urge upon you the advisability of paving Stepney Green and
Devonshire Street at the earliest opportunity you think financial
arrangements will permit.
In the present days when steam rolling has become quite a necessity
in any civilized district, the advisability of paving the channels is a
question of great importance, and this matter has been very fully
considered by your Highway Committee, who have arranged the various
streets into three classes, preference being given to those of the
largest traffic.
The material laid in the channels of Bancroft Road a year ago does
not show the slightest sign of wear—indeed there is practically no wear
in a channel—and it is the cheapest and most regularly formed material
for the purpose with which 1 am acquainted. It is the annealed slag
from the iron furnaces in the Cleveland districts, and is a hard silicate
of lime.
A few hundred pounds per annum spent in paving channels would
soon repay the outlay, and would improve the appearance and sanitary
condition of the roads.