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of its kind in London, hot water from the Battersea Power Station is
carried under the Thames, stored in a specially built tower for the purpose
of supplying hot water and space heating to the 1,621 flats of the Pimlico
Scheme. No solid fuel can be burnt in the flats and this should save
some 10,000 tons of coal per annum as well as making a notable contribution
to smoke abatement. The Westminster Housing trust operating
with the City Council and receiving considerable financial assistance
from the latter has completed 100 new flats up to the present time.
These, like the Council s new dwellings, are also supplied with lifts.
As has often been said a high proportion of old people is characteristic
of our population today, especially so in Westminster, and it follows that
the number of applications for ground floor and first floors is increasing.
Heart weakness, high blood pressure, asthma, and other embarrassments
of the circulation and lungs render high buildings rather distressing to
old people. To them, the provision of lifts now universal in these postwar
schemes, has given immeasurable relief.
The City Council is considering the building of flats on two other
bombed sites in the neighbourhood of the Southern Railway not far
from Ebury Bridge. The proposed scheme would provide for 280 families.
When all the new schemes are completed 2.152 flats will be in occupation.
Added to the pre-war dwellings of the Council (1,557) and to accommodation
adapted by the Council in requisitioned houses, Westminster
will have provided accommodation for 6,075 family units.
House-to-house routine inspections to secure improved standards of
habitation continued throughout the year. This work is in the charge
of a Housing Inspector with four others who devote all their time to
housing. Through their operations. 778 dwellings came under review
involving 3.654 re-inspections. As a result 53 underground dwellings
and other parts of buildings were represented for closure, while 329
Notices were served to ensure repairs of various defects.
Food poisoning: The Minister asks for details relating to outbreaks
during the year.Eight investigations were made compared with 18 in
1948. It by no means follows that all cases, including those of mild or
transient illness, have sought medical advice. In any given outbreak,
there are almost always cases so mild, that, were it not for others of pronounced
illness, would pass entirely umioticed. Therefore although two
cases were notified in 1948 and eight in 1949, there were fewer outbreaks
in 1949. The total persons reported known to be affected were 114 in
1948 and 105 in 1949.
In last year's report the point was made that in Westminster with
its 3,000 catering establishments, the incidence of food poisoning was
relatively insignificant. In relation to the meals served in them, over
one million per day, the number of persons affected throughout the year,
even with minor food poisoning, was, so far as is known, 105. The
matter of food poisoning to which so much publicity has been given,
should be viewed in its proper perspective and at the same time let the
improvements in structure, equipment, and methods in catering establishments,
well under way, continue,—for considerable improvement
after the war years was certainly due.
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