I must request you will be good enough to have such door or covering properly repaired and made good in accordance with the construction required by law, within days from the date hereof, and in the event of your failing to do so, proceedings will be taken to enforce the penalty to which you are liable without further notice.
I am, your obedient Servant,
______________________________
Town Surveyor.
To _______________
In accordance with the provisions contained in the section of the Towns Improvement Clauses Act 1847 which I have quoted, that the “door or covering shall be made by the occupier of such vault or cellar of iron or such other materials, and in such manner as the commissioners direct,” most towns in this country have prescribed the size and materials of which they shall be made, the size being often limited to 6 feet in length, by 20 inches projection, from the line of plynth of the building, for cellar coverings or pavement lights as they are sometimes called, and 12 inches in diameter for coal plates.
Hayward’s patent hexagonal and semiprismatic pavement lights, however, have obviated the danger of slipping upon this description of covering, and consequently little or no inconvenience is experienced, even if the greater portion of the foot pavement is covered by them.[142]
Coalhole plates should be so firmly fixed as to prevent the possibility of their shifting, even when the rebate of the flag stone into which they are dropped is worn, and also to prevent mischievous persons from raising them.
Here let me state that no person can without the written consent of the urban authority cause “any vault, arch or cellar to be newly built or constructed under the carriageway of any street” (38 & 39 Vic. c. 55, s. 26); but from this section it does not appear illegal to construct a vault, arch or cellar under the footpath, which would generally be the extent to which such constructions would be extended. However, the more general powers contained in section 149 of the same Act, by which all “streets and the pavement stones and other materials thereof” vest in and are under the control of the urban authority, give the necessary powers to prevent the construction of cellars under any portion of the foot-pavement without the consent of the urban authority.
The usual practice adopted is for any person who requires to construct a cellar under the foot-pavement or carriageway of any street, to apply to the urban authority for the necessary permission to do so. In granting the permission, the urban authority call upon the owner of the premises to which the proposed vault or cellar is attached, to enter into an agreement acknowledging that the cellar or vault is only an easement, and agreeing to remove the encroachment whenever called upon by the urban authority to do so.
These agreements and any other similar easements should be kept together in a book, which may be called the “Easement Book,” and indexed in such a manner that a reference can be easily made at any time to any easement that has been granted.