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estimated cost of £61,680. The cost of ail adaptation in, for example
a £10 estimate will be shared as follows (following approval by the
Ministry of Housing and Local Government: —)
Owner/Occupier £3 0 0
Council.£3 0 0
Ministry £4 0 0
£10 0 0
Pollution from Vehicles
Many people, like myself, have been seriously worried by the
vehicle pollution problem. Following discussions with the Director
of the M.R.C. Air Pollution Unit at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, it
appears that the chimney is still the serious problem. Atmospheric
sampling in Blackwall Tunnel, the Archway, North London, in
garages and other confined areas apparently does not yield the
irritants and carcinogens that chimneys so universally do. Epidemiologists
have studied statistics of garage workers, policemen and
many occupations where workers are exposed to persistent and
varying degrees of exhaust pollution and, so far, we are told, it has
not been proved that with these workers there is a special additional
hazard in respect of bronchitis and carcinoma of lung.
However, at last year's Clean Air Congress, the President of the
National Society for Clean Air, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead, in a
masterly address, pointed out that Scheper1 has said, "about 3,000
chemical particles have been identified which can be dispersed in air;
less than 10 per cent of these we know something about and less than
1 per cent of that which we know is relevant". Therefore it is easily
seen what the enormity of the task will be to follow up effectively all
known pollutants of air. Lord Cohen also revealed some further
American work by Mills 2 : "in an interesting survey of lung cancer
deaths in greater Cincinnatti, it was found that there were highly
significant correlations between deaths from lung cancer and three
other variables, namely cigarette smoking, urban residence, and the
number of miles driven annually in urban traffic. In a recent analysis
of his findings he asserts that, in general, urban residents exposed in
urban traffic for over 12,000 miles per annum exhibit over twice the
lung cancer incident rates of those with lesser urban dwelling
mileage".
I think it is still wise to suspect vehicle traffic pollution as being
dangerous, especially at street level. It is clear, however, that all the
specific researches are going to take time. Some means must be
made available to lessen the intensity of vehicular pollution on our
urban highways as soon as possible. To this end the Los Angeles