View report page

42
Market Streets.
There were 893 inspections of market streets, each of which includes a number
of stalls at which meat, fish, fruit and vegetables are sold. These streets are
regularly inspected daily and on Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings.
The daily inspection of these market streets helps to secure the maintenance
by the regular stallholders of good, sound food only, and, in addition, has the effect
of keeping away from these markets casual and unsatisfactory hawkers, who
generally avoid markets subject to regular and strict supervision.
In order to minimise as far as practicable any contamination of the food
exposed for sale in market streets from dust arising during street cleansing, the
Borough Surveyor has arranged for these streets to be sufficiently watered before
the scavenging to prevent dust arising.
Street Trading.
The London County Council (General Powers) Act, 1927, by Part VI, conferred
powers on Local Authorities in London to issue licences to street traders and made
it unlawful for any person to sell or expose, or offer for sale, any article or thing
from or upon any barrow, cart, stall, or other receptacle occupying a stationary
position at a place in the carriage way or footway of any street in any Metropolitan
Borough, without such licence. The Act also provided for the making of by-laws
by the Borough Council relative to various matters cognate to such street trading,
including the storage of and the sanitary supervision (while at the place of intended
sale or exposure or offering for sale) of articles of food intended to be sold or exposed
or offered for sale under the authority of the licence. By-laws made by the Holborn
Council in pursuance of these powers were approved by the Home Secretary and
came into operation in the early part of 1928. The enforcement of the by-laws,
so far as they deal with the sanitary supervision of the articles exposed for sale,
is being undertaken by the Public Health Department.
I received information from the Borough Engineer respecting 100 applications
from street traders for licences to sell various articles of food as follows: —
Coffee stalls 6
Confectionery 5
Confectionery and drinks 5
Eels and shell fish 3
Fish—wet and dry 7
Fruit 28
Fruit and vegetables 11
Groceries 3
Ice cream 7
Ice cream and chestnuts 8
Meat 3
Poultry, eggs and provisions 3
Vegetables
100