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However, some local authorities have not installed appliances
of types in respect of which applications for grant are made and
others are installing appliances which the Department would not
normally regard as 'reasonably necessary' replacements for existing
appliances in smoke control areas.
To resolve these difficulties, which this Council has not
experienced, the Circular sets out cost limits for various types of
appliances and, the principles to be observed by the local authorities
in determining what works of adaptation should be treated as
'reasonably necessary', have been consolidated and amended. These
principles are in the form of a further revision of Paragraph 26
of the Ministry's Memorandum on Smoke Control Areas.
It is for the local authority to decide within the appropriate
cost limit, what costs are reasonable and the Minister will, for his
part, accept as qualifying for exchequer contribution, expenditure
which is acceptable to the local authority and which falls within
the limits set out, but he will not normally accept any portion
of the cost, excluding that of installation, which exceeds the appropriate
limit.
The cost limits set out in the Circular were adopted by the
Council.
Circular 69/65—Tall Buildings and Industrial Emissions—
This Circular draws attention to the need for local authorities to
give especially careful consideration to proposals for the erection
of very tall new buildings where they might be affected by the
emissions from existing chimney stacks which serve large industrial
installations burning solid or liquid fuels.
In such situations, the upper parts of the building may be
subjected to undesirable high peak concentrations of sulphur
dioxide and the bui'ding, by reason of the down-draughts it creates,
might interfere with the normal dispersal of the plume from the
stack.
It is suggested that both eventualities should be considered
whenever the proposed building would be more than two-thirds the
height of the existing stack. In respect of distance between either,
much depends on the volume and temperature of the emissions, the
amount of sulphur dioxide involved, the size and shape of the
building and local topographical conditions.
Circular 77/65—Estimates and Final Costs—In order to
simplify the handling of smoke control orders, arrangements for
submission of information about the cost of fireplace adaptations
are revised in this Circular with the main changes concerning local
authority dwellings. Hitherto, detailed information was required