Edinburgh and District Water Bill : statement by the trustees.

  • Edinburgh and District Water Trust.
Date:
[1871?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Edinburgh and District Water Bill : statement by the trustees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    3/28 (page 3)
    approved of it; and the ratepayers of St Bernard's, St Stephen's, S Luke's, and St Andrew's wards by a majority a]:)proved of it. Meanwhile the Water Company, seeing that the Corporations were in earnest, propounded a scheme for bringing in supplies of water— not from the Pentlands, that source being declared by Mr Ramsay, then manager, and Mr Leslie, then engineer of the Company, and by the Directors to be practically exhausted—but from the South Esk or Moorfoot district, which was also recommended by Mr Hawksley, the consulting engineer of the Company. Another scheme, known as the Tweed or Talla Scheme, was propounded by Mr Coyne about the same time. In these circum- stances the Joint Committee deemed it to be their duty to request Mr Stewart and Mr Bateman to examine and report upon the several schemes. Mr Stewart's report, dated 3d February, and Mr Bateman's report, dated 4th February 1869, dealt very fully with the Moorfoot or South Esk Scheme, with the Tweed or Talla Scheme, and with the Heriot district, and both concurred in recom- mending the St Mary's Loch Scheme as relatively the cheapest and otherwise the best. The reports of these gentlemen were printed and circulated among the members of the Joint Committee, who on 15th February 1869, by a majority of fifteen to three, approved thereof, and agreed to report to the several corporations that in their opinion the St Mary's Loch Scheme is the one which in all circumstances is the best. Thereafter the minute of the Joint Committee, and the several reports, were submitted to the Town Councils of Edinburgh, Leith, and Portobello, and wei-e considered by the Town Council of Edinburgh on 18th February 1869, when, by a majority of twenty-four to five, seven declining to vote, the documents were approved of, and it was resolved to prosecute the Bill then before Parliament. On the same day the Town Council of Leith adopted a similar resolution. Not content with the publicity given to their proceedings by the publication of these reports, and by the prolonged and frequent dis- cussions which took place in regard to them, especially in the Town Council of Edinburgh, the Joint Committee, on 22d February 1869, issued a statement to the public in name of the three corporations, affording full information in regai-d to the measure. - At this stage the Examiner upon Standing Orders sustained one of a multitude of technical objections taken by the Water Com- pany to the Parliamentary plans and sections. The Standing Order Committee of the House of Commons allowed it to be got over. The Standing Order Committee of the House of Lords, however, considering that the objection related to St Mary's Loch, which was then supposed to be the exclusive property B