[Report 1891] / Medical Officer of Health, Isle of Wight Rural District Council.

  • Isle of Wight (England). Rural District Council. n 83204987.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1891] / Medical Officer of Health, Isle of Wight Rural District Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    33/60 (page 33)
    become dry, and a farmhouse and the adjoining cottages have been without water some five or six years. In compliance with your legal obligations you called upon the owner, under sec. 3, P.H. (Water) A., 1878, to‘.provide water. As he failed to do so you proposed to gutter the roof of a slated double tenement in order to furnish a rainwater supply, the alternative being to lay a main from the Ryde Waterworks at the expense of the parish of Newchurch. You applied to the Local Government Board as to the amount you could recover; and, as a result, an informal enquiry was held at Newchurch by Mr. S. T. Smith, C.E., Local Government Board Inspector, at the end of April. Mr. Smith pointed out that a rainwater supply could scarcely be considered satisfactory, when a supply of good underground water, such as that supplied to Ryde, was available. In the end, the matter was delayed for six months, to enable the owner to make arrangements for such supply in the mean time. Apparently, he has been unable to do so, for at the ’end of the year, and at the time of writing the houses in question are without water. The committee specially appointed to' consider the question Fivehouses, of the water supply of Fivehouses, Calbourne. Newbridge, Calbourne, and Shalfleet met two or three times, and you granted them amT Shalfleet ^50 to enable them to prosecute their enquiries by means of water supplies, experimental borings, but, as yet, nothing has been done. Your committee is wise in exercising great caution, for the sub¬ ject is a difficult one ; but it will have to be grappled with, and brought to a successful issue, as Fivehouses is practically with¬ out water, and many of the inhabitants of Calbourne, New¬ bridge, and Shalfleet are dependent upon the polluted stream. The North wood Parochial Committee have recommended Tinker’s Lane you to apply to the owner of the spring in Ruffins’ Copse— water supply, who gave the people of Whitwell the water that has been led to that village—with a view to utilising it for the supply of Tinker’s Lane, it having been already laid onto houses on his estate, A favorable reply has been received from his repre¬ sentative, and the Northwood Committee will formulate a scheme. The same Committee were of opinion that, at present, the Gurnard supply from rainwater tanks and wells is sufficient at Gurnard. water supply. They request you, however, to insist upon cesspits being made tight, a wise recommendation, for the wells will inevitably be¬ come poisoned if the sewage is discharged into the subsoil. The Parochial Committee were further of opinion that you Horsebridge should endeavour to obtain Carisbrooke water for Horsebridge Hill water Hill by the continuation of the main of the Newport Corpo- SUPP L ration from the Upper Prison, at Parkhurst, to the Hill, and, if possible, to Noke Common. The Corporation of Newport have signified their intention not to themselves continue their mains to Horsebridge Hill, but they may yet see their way to do so.