Dr. E.P. Manby's report to the Local Government Board upon the sanitary circumstances and administration of the Urban District of Ince-in-Makerfield.

  • Manby, E. P.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr. E.P. Manby's report to the Local Government Board upon the sanitary circumstances and administration of the Urban District of Ince-in-Makerfield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    riie council liave appointed tlie inspector of nuisances to be inspector under the Housing and Town Planning Act, 1909, and the work of inspection under Section IT of this Act has com- menced. Backyards are unpaved as a rule, and they allow water to accumulate in pools, and the surface is often contaminated with ftecal matter and with refuse of one or other sort. No fewer than 199 common yards are stated to exist in Ince, and not infrequently the space at the back of a row of cottages is entirely open, so that carts can be driven along between the dwellings and the out-building's. Some of these spaces are being* dealt with under the Private Streets Works Act, 1892. The existence of so many unpaved common yards is one of the inost displeasing features of Ince, and but little improvement in this lespect appears to have been made since Hr. Parsons reported in 1879. In a few^ instances I saw that part of a common yard had been paved by the owner of certain houses while the owner of adjoining houses had left the space adjacent to them unpaved. The contrast between the cleanly appearance of the paved part and the untidy appearance of the rest of the yard was most striking. And generally throughout the district the contrast between paved and unpaved yard is obvious. The medical officer of health and the inspector of nuisances fi'om dealing w-itli common yards when inspecting the houses abutting upon them because they had been advised that such yards whether belonging to defective houses or not did not come within the definition of ‘‘dwelling house’’ as given m ^e Housing Acts, 1890 and 1909. It would seem that even if the common yard cannot be said to “ belong to ” tlie houses it can be said to be “usually enjoyed therewith,” and that if all the abutting houses are defective the whole yard could be dealt there is real difficulty in this connexion under the Housing Acts there should be none in getting the matter dealt with under Section 91 of the Public Health Act, 18T5. Indeed, in 1886, Dr. Parsons, after consultation with the Board, advised the Ince authorities that if nuisance could be prevented from recurring' only by a yard being paved they might require tnis to be done under this section. Excrement and refuse disposal is chiefly by privy-middens, of which there are 2,680 in Ince. There are some 570 water closets inin were installed 7 X* ^ lj297 houses without separate closet accom- modation. The middens are roofed, as a rule, and many of tneni have been reduced in size since Hr. Parsons’ visits, but until the last two or three years all new houses have been built pos- sessing privy middens. In many of the newer houses the privy IS much nearer the dwelling than is usual in the old houses, and the midden is often more difficult to cleanse as the door is higher up and smaller. Hr. Parsons recommended that privy mkhfens, li erected at ajp should be so arranged that they could be emptied rom the exterior. But, as a fact, there is hardly a midden in Ince whmh does not require the scavenger to get inside it to shovel out the filth.