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to the level of the river bed. Complications also arise in respect
of railway bridges carrying services which must, on no account,
be interrupted and improvements must be carried out with the
minimum of disturbance to existing buildings. The problem
bristles with difficulties not the least of which is the fact that the
dry weather flow can be as little as 1/200th of the storm flow.
Preliminary work to the extent of over £20.000 has already
been carried out and a scheme formulated by the two County
Councils is to be put to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food for his approval which in the London area, proposes
at a cost of £3½ million to effect the following works: —
Concrete channels with vertical sides through industrial
areas, under bridges and such.
Concrete channels with battered sides through industrial
and urban areas and in open spaces where more land is
not available for improvement purposes.
Concrete culverts in industrial and urban areas where
culverting is necessitated by existing land use or paid
for by landowners.
Concrete or masonry-walled channels to contain a proportion of the flood flow with berms and sloping flood
banks to contain the remainder.
The Scheme if approved will attract Ministry grants and will
be implemented in four stages: —
1. Improvements to the outfall and lower regions of the
Ravensbourne to a convenient point above the congested areas of Deptford and Lewisham.
2. Improvements to the remainder of the River Ravensbourne and the River Pool up to the County boundary
thus allowing for increased flow resulting from the proposed improvement of the River Pool in Kent and the
elimination of bottlenecks on the Ravensbourne in the
area of Shortlands in Kent.
3. Improvements to the River Quaggy to allow for proposed
improvement of the Quaggy. Chin Brook and Kyd Brook.
4. Improvements to the minor tributaries in the London
Area.
Powers originally given to the Metropolitan Borough Councils
under the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act, 1951, are now
enforced by the London County Council.
Atmospheric Pollution—General.—For many years, smoke
and the oxides of sulphur, have been considered to be the most
important of the pollutants in the atmosphere and my reports