[Report 1919] / Medical Officer of Health, Salop / Shropshire County Council.

  • Shropshire Council
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1919] / Medical Officer of Health, Salop / Shropshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    50/58 (page 37)
    Wellington Urban.—A survey of the closet accommodation was undertaken by the Surveyor during tlie year, and 276 privies were found to exist in the urban area, and they serve about 390 houses. Eighty-nine of tliese aie in bacl repaii and are in need of imme^liate con¬ version ; 107 are in a fair state of repair ; and 56 are considered satisfactory at present. Nine are not witliin reasonable distance of any sewer, and 14 owing to their position cannot be connected aji.l would require to be rebuilt on at a higher level. This report was placed before the Com¬ mittee, and it was considered that no useful purpose would be served by dealing with them whole.sale owing to the shortage of workmen, and notice was to be served for the conversion of a few of the worst ones. In five houses this was completed during the year. On the grounds of j)ublic health, owners of property in the congested areas in the centre of the town should be cuinpellcd to convert them at once. They may be structurally in good repair, but the removal of the night-soU is a recurring nuisance to their neighbours, which can only be removed by uitroducuig the water-closet system.” Wcnlock Borough.— The Inspector has no record of the numbers of the different types of closets existing in the Borough, but old vault privies of objectionable type are in great majority, in the towns as well as in the country areas.” Wellington Rural—Drainage and Sewerage.—” The conversion of the whole of the privies in Hadley to the water carriage system is a policy that should be actively pursued.” SEWAGE DISPOSAL AND RIVER POLLUTION. Recommendations are made for impioving the treatment of the Oakengates sewage and for a complete .system of sewage disposal for Market Drayton. Atcham Rural—Pollution of the River Rea.—” Serious complaints were received of offensive nuLajice extending over sev'eral miles of the riv'er course, due to the extensive pollution of the •stream by the washings, waste and whey, from a creamery at Minsterley. Careful investigation was made, and repeated visits paid by myself and the Sanitary In-pector, and every effort made by advice and representations to the management to abate the niii-ance. Partial attempts having been made with little success to deal with the effluent on l;uid adjacent to the creamery, the Council at last serv-ed statutory notice, and the measures then ado])ted, and specially the removal of the creamery to another side not directly on the stream, were successful. The effluvium from the river three or four miles below the creamery’ was at ‘imes intolerable during the summer when the river was low.” Whitchurch Urban—Pollution of Mile Bank Brook.—” Grav'e and repeated nuisance caused by the pollution of the Mile Bank Brook by waste, whey and sewage from a creamery and cheese hictory, has arisen throughout iqiS and 1919.—The stream is verv small at dry times, and with little fall in most of its course. Hence the putrefiable waste filled the brook ari'l stagnated over a mile or more of its length, and the effluvium was extremely offeitsive, causing intolerable Jiiii^ance at times. Repeated representations were made by the Surveyor, who made every ' hurt to get the nuisance abated, and also by niyself. Statutory notices were also server! by the ’ ouiicil, but though some temporary and partial measures were taken by the management and tli'’ < oiiditions improved for a period, no radical improvement likely to obviate the pollution 11 in ly was effected by the end of the year.”