Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
The phenomenal growth of population in Middlesex from early 1920s brought problems of peculiar difficulty in sewage disposal. These were partly offset by the district councils extending their local purification works but it was clear that the problem could best be met by co-ordination and centralisation of treatment.
After intensive investigation and report by its consulting engineers, under the guidance of John Duncan Watson, the County Council with difficulty secured one of the last Unemployment Grants and obtained powers to construct and operate a system of trunk sewers, with sewage purification and sludge disposal works, to serve Western Middlesex. The undertaking came into operation in 1935-36 and included the Mogden works, then the largest and most modern full-treatment plant in the world.
The West Middlesex undertaking served 16 local authorities covering an area of 171 square miles and a population of 1, 360, 000. 70 miles of trunk sewers carried 70,000,000 gallons of sewage a day.