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23
FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACT, 1901.
As required by Section 132 of the above Act, I beg to report on
the administration of the same in this District during the year.
There are 267 Workshops on the Register, but this I am of opinion
is not all, as we are constantly finding out premises which come under
the Act, the occupier having failed to report him or herself.
When classified, there are 182 Laundries, 24 Retail Bakehouses,
and 61 other Workshops. These include tenement and domestic
Workshops but not Domestic Factories or Workplaces.
Personally I have made 64 inspections, and the Sanitary Inspectors
239. It will be noticed that the Laundry industry comprises the
chief business of the Workshops.
As to the sanitation of these premises, which embraces cleanliness,
air space, ventilation, and drainage, I must say it is very good on the
whole, very few Notices having to be served, and only one prosecution
(in which we were successful) has been necessary. This was under
Section 8, as to the wet state of the floor, and means of draining the
same.
Of the 24 Retail Bakehouses on the Register, 11 are underground.
It has not been necessary to serve Notices on the occupiers as to
sanitary defects, and the premises have been regularly whitewashed
twice yearly as prescribed by the Act, and visited 89 times by the
Sanitary Inspectors.
The following are the provisions of Section 101 of the Factory and
Workshop Act, 1901, which relates to Bakehouses:—
"1. An Underground Bakehouse shall not be used as a Bakehouse unless it is so
used at the passing of this Act.
"2. Subject to the foregoing provision, after the first day of January 1904, an
Underground Bakehouse shall not be used unless certified by the District Council
to be suitable for that purpose.
"3. For the purpose of this section an Underground Bakehouse shall mean a
Bakehouse, any baking room of which is so situate that the surface of the floor is
more than three feet below the surface of the adjoining street or the ground adjoining
or nearest to the room. The expression ' baking room ' means any room used for
baking or for any process incidental thereto.
"4. An Underground Bakehouse shall not be certified as suitable unless the
District Council is satisfied that it is suitable as regards construction, light, ventilation,
and in all other respects.
"6. If any place is used in contravention to this section, it shall be deemed to be
a Workshop not kept in conformity with this Act."