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REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH FOR 1962 5
tion of Part 2 of the Housing Act, 1961, relating to houses in
multiple occupation must be on a planned, deliberate and long-term
basis. The Committee adopted certain standards in terms of water
closets, baths and cooking facilities etc. and in applying these
standards, it was agreed that attention should be focused on the one
and two room lettings for the most part in the three and four storey
types of premises. The district public health inspectors, so far as they
are able in the course of their ordinary work, would carry out
inspections of these properties and complete a record in respect of
each house. Every effort would be made to obtain Improvements
informally and landlords would be informed of what is necessary in
order to comply with the standards and permitted numbers in the
properties. Management Orders as provided for in the Act would
only be made after every effort by informal means failed to obtain
the necessary improvements. As to the question of registration of
houses in multiple occupation, it is hoped that as the work proceeds
a card index register of these properties will gradually be built up,
enabling a decision as to registration to be taken in due course. At
the time of writing, progress is being made but it is clear that no
early or easy solution of this problem of multiple occupation is to be
expected.
The work in connection with smoke control and the making of
Smoke Control Orders proceeded in 1962 and Order No. 4 was confirmed
by the Minister. Work is currently proceeding on No. 5 area,
which is shown on the map on Page 50.
In December a very severe smog was experienced in the London
area which, coming almost exactly ten years after the notorious smog
of 1952, presented an opportunity to compare the effects in 1962
with those of 10 years earlier. Personal impressions, however unreliable,
are worth recording and a number of people confirmed my
own opinion that so far as density was concerned, both smogs were
almost equally bad but in 1962 the irritation caused to the throat and
eyes after being out for any length of time was less in 1962 than in
1952. To obtain some confirmation of these purely personal impressions,
certain figures and data are available although they must
be interpreted with caution, because Wandsworth is only a comparatively
small part of the greater London conurbation and smoke
and sulphur dioxide recorded locally at any given time are partly
produced in areas outside the Borough, particularly those in the
south-west since the predominant winds are from that direction.
The figures recorded for smoke and sulphur dioxide in Wandsworth
over the period of the 1962 smog are shown in Table III of the
Atmospheric Pollution section of the Report. No figures are available
for the corresponding period in 1952 because at that time no
recording stations were in operation but for comparison purposes, I
have shown the figures for the corresponding days in 1959, 1960 and
1961. As already mentioned, these figures are difficult to analyse but
they appear to show that as regards both smoke and sulphur dioxide,