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70
SEWAGE DISPOSAL.
The production of an effluent at all times satisfactory to the Lee
Conservancy has not been accomplished, but no complaint as to
nuisance on the Farm, or arising from the tanks or the effluent, has
been reported.
At my visits none existed.
That an effluent of a high standard of purity should be insisted on
under existing conditions is not reasonable. Nevertheless, in the
month of September the Stratford Justices imposed a fine of £10 10s.
in respect of each of two summonses, with £10 18s. costs.
Negotiations have been carried on during the year with the County
Council of London for the reception of the sewage from the districts of
Walthamstow, Leyton, Edmonton, Enfield and Southgate. Unfortunately,
no definite agreement has yet been arrived at, and it is to be
hoped that the solution of a very large and urgent problem in public
health administration will not fail for want of the needful pressure.
Either sanction for borrowing the money required for a comprehensive
scheme for dealing locally with our sewage should be granted by the
Local Government Board, or a means found to relieve your Authority
from the onus of providing an effluent satisfactory to the Lee Conservancy,
or the scheme agreed to by four of the five Authorities concerned
should be made compulsory on all.
HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
There are no registered lodging houses in this district, nor was any
action taken or needed during the year under the Housing of the
Working Classes Acts.
There is ample housing accommodation available in all portions of
the district, at rentals varying from 5s. 6d. to 9s, weekly, rates included.
The lesser rentals command flats of three or four rooms and the larger
houses with five or six rooms.
The mortality from summer diarrhcea in hand-fed children under one
year of age is so closely related with housing accommodation that
tenements of one or two rooms should be discouraged as much as
possible, and except for old couples there is here little necessity for
such accommodation, owing to the low rents prevailing.
At the last census there were five persons occupying one room in
four houses; four persons to one room in 15 houses; and three persons