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30
UNDERGROUND BAKEHOUSES.
The Public Health Committee have had under consideration the
question of providing certificates of suitability for underground bakehouses,
as required for all underground bakehouses after the 1st
January, 1904, in accordance with Seotion 101 of the Factory and
Workshop Act, 1901. Sub-section 4 of Section 101 enacts that "An
underground bakehouse shall not be certified as suitable unless the
District (or Borough) Council is satisfied that it is suitable as regards
construction, light, ventilation, and in all other respects."
The Public Health Committee has adopted the following as the
requirement in every underground bakehouse, which must be fulfilled,
before the Committee can recommend the Borough Council to grant a
certificate in accordance with Section 101, Sub-section 4, of the Factory
and Workshop Act, 1901.
Every underground bakehouse must:—
(1.) Have sufficient daylight illumination.
(2.) Have adequate means for ventilation and exclusion of
street dust.
(3.) Have smooth, even, and impermeable walls and floor,
and dust-tight ceiling.
(4.) Have sufficient air space for the workers, and a height
of not less than 8 feet throughout.
(5.) Be provided with movable troughs and fittings on
castors or wheels.
(6.) Have proper places for the storage of flour, coal, and
refuse material.
(7.) Have no drain-inlet within the bakehouse that does not
discharge into an intercepting gulley.
(8.) If traversed by a drain, have such drain watertight, and
properly constructed and ventilated.
(9.) Have proper w.c. accommodation for the men employed
therein.
There are 40 underground bakehouses in the Borough, all but one
being in actual or occasional use. Many of these underground bakehouses
are cellars in very old houses, with low ceilings, insufficiently
lighted by daylight, and badly ventilated, the ventilation openings in
some cases being on the street level, and admitting much dust from the
street. It is difficult to see how this class of bakehouse can be rendered
suitable in accordance with the requirements of the Act, without very
extensive structural alterations, involving considerable outlay. In some
cases also the leases are short, so that there would be little prospect
of recoupment for expenditure incurred. There is nothing in the Act
which enables the Borough Council to make the certificates of suitability
terminable, or to give them for a limited period only. Under these
circumstances it appears that the Borough Council should only give
certificates where the requirements of suitability have been adequately
met, otherwise the Act will only perpetuate evils which are now
recognised as detrimental to the health interests of the employees and
the public. It seems inevitable that many bakery businesses will suffer
loss as the result of the operation of the Act, but no scheme of compensation
has been included in it.