[Report 1920] / Medical Officer of Health, Romsey Borough.

  • Romsey (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1920] / Medical Officer of Health, Romsey Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/26 (page 6)
    It was the aim of the Council for many years to secure a, site for the erection of works to which the wholes of the sewage of the town, could be conveyed by gravitation,. With such a site in view, plans and estimates were pre¬ pared as long ago as 1903, for the complete resewerage of the town,, and for the installation of purification works on the Septic tank and filter-bed principle. It then tran¬ spired that the proposed site could not be acquired, and this being the only place that could be. reached by gravi¬ tation, and the alternative, of pumping adding soi enor¬ mously to the prospective cost, the undertaking has ever since remained in abeyance. Personally, I have always regarded a complete new Sewerage and Sewage purification system as necessary and inevitable, and I think it a pity the difficulty was not faced/ while it was still not insuperable. At the pre¬ sent time the cost of such an undertaking may well be regarded as prohibitive. Closet Accommodation and Excrement Disposal. The system that applies to about half the houses in the Borough is the use of pails, which are collected and replaced during the night twice weekly, the town being divided into, three districts for that purpose. The con¬ tents of the pails are taken to a. field outside the town, where earth is added, and the. produce is ultimately sold for manure. Although the system may not be directly injurious.— and I am not prepared to say ft is even prejudicial to the health of the inhabitants—it is, I think, at best an un¬ satisfactory expedient. The offensiveness of the collec¬ tion and the whole proceeding are necessarily objection¬ able. The number of closets so provided is about 577, and the number of houses dependent on them rather more than 600, there being some cases, but now comparatively few, where there is only one closet for two adjoining houses. , ;