Whenever a local authority decide to make application to the Local Government Board for power to borrow money for any proposed improvements or works within their district, it is the duty of the town surveyor to prepare the necessary drawings and obtain the required information in order to fill in the forms which are supplied from the Local Government Board office.
With reference to this important part of his duty, I cannot do better than give the following Suggestions as to the Preparation of Plans of Proposed Works, by Robert Rawlinson, C.B., C.E., &c. (Chief Engineering Inspector to the Local Government Board), prepared by him in 1878:
“It will in all cases be necessary, upon application being made for sanction to a loan, for the execution of works, that plans (or tracings of the plans), sections, estimates in detail and specifications be submitted with the application, accompanied by information as to the population at the two last periods of the taking of the census, the rateable value of the district, and the amount of outstanding loans.”
“Such plans or tracings may be used for showing lines of main sewers, drains, water-pipes and gas-mains. The lines of main sewers and drains should have the cross sectional dimensions of the sewers and their gradients distinctly marked (written and figured) upon them. The dimensions of water and gas pipes should also be shown in figures or by writing.”
“N.B.—No general map should be submitted which is drawn to a scale of less than 6 inches to a mile, except when the inch ordnance map is used.”
“Maps upon which sewerage works or water works are to be shown, or for street improvements, should be not less than the ordnance scale of ¹⁄₂₅₀₀th.”
“The sections should be drawn to the same horizontal scale, and to a vertical scale of 20 feet to 1 inch.”
Any detailed plan for the purposes of house drainage, paving, the purchase of land &c., should be “constructed to a scale of not less than 10 feet to a mile, and upon this plan should be exhibited all houses and other buildings, bench marks, the levels of streets and roads, of cellars, of the sea at high and low tide level, and the summer and flood levels of rivers. 3 feet by 2 feet will be a convenient size for the sheets of this plan.”
“Enlarged detail plans and sections of sewers, side entrances, man-holes, sewer sluices, sluice valves, water-pipe joints, and similar details, should be to a scale not less than 8 feet to 1 inch, and for some details 4 feet to 1 inch.”[250]
“As it may occasionally be desired to carry out works piecemeal, with a view to save the time which would be occupied in the preparation of a complete plan from actual survey, it will be sufficient in the first instance to furnish any available general plan of streets and roads, with the surface levels and those of the deepest cellars figured in feet and inches, and the proposed scheme of works shown (or sketched) thereon, after which the works can proceed in sections. It should be understood, however, that a complete plan of the entire district must be proceeded with, so that when the works are finished, the sanitary authority and this Board may possess a proper record of them.”