The Municipal and Sanitary Engineer's HandbookBoulnois, H. Percy (Henry Percy)
Science
The Municipal and Sanitary Engineer's Handbook
Boulnois, H. Percy (Henry Percy)
Municipal engineering; Sanitary engineering
First then, I conclude that it is the duty of the surveyor to call the
attention of the urban authority to the fact that any street within his
district (not being a highway repairable by the inhabitants at large) is
not “sewered, levelled, paved, &c.” but there is no express order for
him to do so, but with whoever this duty rests, it is no doubt the
surveyor’s duty to be certain that the street in question has never been
dedicated to the public or repaired at the cost of the rates, but is
really a private street within the meaning of the Act.
Before proceeding to give the manner of putting the 150th section into
force, it is necessary to draw attention to some of its wording.
The word “sewered” no doubt is also meant to include all drains both for
house sewage and surface water falling on the street, &c., and may be
used in the same comprehensive manner that the word “sewerage” is
generally employed.
“Levelled” is also rather a vague term, but it has been held to refer
only to the level or cross section of the street itself, there being no
power to charge the adjacent owners with the expense of altering the
level of the street so as to make it conform to a street with which it
connects. The word “formed” would in this case have therefore been a
more appropriate phrase.
“Paved, metalled, flagged, channelled and made good” are very precise
directions, but why both the words “paved” and “metalled” are used is
not clear. Is the paving to be placed on the top of the metalling or
vice versâ? It seems ludicrous to have used both words. The word
“kerbed” also ought no doubt to have been inserted, as no street either
urban or suburban can be formed without this necessary adjunct.
These very precise directions, if carried out in their entirety, would
cause great injustice to the adjacent owners of the property who had to
bear the expense, for although “paving” and “flagging” may be necessary
for streets situated in a town itself, they would be perfectly
unnecessary for a suburban road, and it is to this latter class of work
that the section is more frequently applied. There are generally very
few badly maintained private streets in the heart and busiest parts of a
town, much difference of opinion consequently exists in different
localities as to what the requirements shall be.
Some urban authorities insist that the roadways shall be paved with
granite setts or wood blocks, the footpaths being flagged or paved with
asphalte, while others are content with ordinary macadamised roadways
and gravelled paths.
There can be no doubt that the town surveyor must use considerable
discretion in deciding what class of work should be demanded, and he
must be greatly guided by the situation and requirements of the street
in question and the description and value of the adjoining property.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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