Note 153 — Chapter XVIII · NEW STREETS AND BUILDINGS.
Reading edition
‘Model Bye-laws issued by the Local Government Board for the use of sanitary authorities. New Streets and Buildings, IV.’ Printed by George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode, 1877.
[154] It is open also to question whether in the case of an old building being gradually altered into a new one, it would be possible to prosecute, as there is the following limitation as to proceedings in the Public Health Act 1875: “Any complaint or information made or laid in pursuance of this Act shall be made or laid within six months from the time when the matter of such complaint or information respectively arose” . . . (38 & 39 Vic. c. 55, s. 252). The complaint could not be made when the work was first commenced, as no offence would have been committed, and if made after the work was finished, it might be urged that the offence was commenced more than six months prior, and that the complaint should have been made “when the matter of such complaint or information respectively arose.”
[155] Plans are usually deposited with the surveyor as being the officer who would be most likely to understand them.
[156] Nothing can be more vexatious than the bye-law compelling the party walls of new buildings to be carried up above the roof to at least 12 inches; not only does this frequently spoil the architectural appearance of a building, but it causes great expense in order to keep the wet out: a very difficult thing with a wall treated in this manner.