Opening of main drainage works, on Thursday, 30th July, 1936 by Mr Alderman Edward Harris, chairman of the Sewerage and Drainage Committee / County Borough of Swansea.

  • Swansea (Wales). County Borough
Date:
[1936]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Opening of main drainage works, on Thursday, 30th July, 1936 by Mr Alderman Edward Harris, chairman of the Sewerage and Drainage Committee / County Borough of Swansea. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/74 (page 15)
    Scheme, and Mr. Wyrill, the then Borough Engineer, was instructed to prepare a drainage scheme on these lines in collaboration with the late Mr. Midgeley Taylor, whom the Corporation engaged as Consulting Engineer for this purpose. A Local Government Board Inquiry into the Corporation's application for an extension of the borough boundary, which proposal also included the Main Drainage Scheme, was held in 1915, and the Borough Extension Scheme was sanctioned by the Government under the Local Government Board’s Provisional Order Confirmation (No. 6) Act 1918. The areas thus added to the borough were the whole of the Urban District of Oystermouth, the parish of Brynau (in the Gower Rural District), the parish of Cockett, parts of the parishes of Penderry and Clase Rural, and the parish of Llansamlet (all in the Swansea Rural District). With the exception of the Mumbles, West Cross and Sketty districts, the whole of these added areas were at that time unsewered. The borough was thus increased in area from 6,229 acres to 24,24] acres, and the total population brought up to about 150,000. - Subsequently the population of the enlarged borough increased by the year 1921 to 157,554, and by the year 1931 to 164,825. ‘The estimated population of the borough in July, 1935, was 165,550. The granting of the Borough Extension Scheme of 1918 imposed upon the Corporation the obligation, amongst other things, of commencing the construction, in accordance with plans to be approved by the then Local Government Board, of the Main Trunk Sewer for the disposal of the sewage of the Borough “ within six months from the date on which the Local Government Board may sanction the borrowing of moneys to defray the expenses of such work or within such further period as the Local Government Board may authorise.’ Owing, however, to the continuation of the War to near the end of 1918, and to the exceptionally high costs of labour and materials which prevailed for a considerable time in the post-war period, the Government