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117
SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES.
To the Medical Officer of Health.
1 beg to submit a report for the year ending the 31st December,
1947, of the work of the Sanitary Inspectors and other
officers under my supervision. It has been a year given over
largely to dealing with complaints of conditions affecting the
housing environment of residents in the Borough. Six years of
war, in five of which the Borough was subjected to considerable
damage by enemy action has left property in a bad state of repair
and since the "peace" labour and materials difficulties have
not permitted a rapid restoration. Owners, as well as tenants, of
property have had recourse to "calling in the Sanitary Inspector"
in order to facilitate the granting of the necessary building
licence to permit essential works of repair to be carried out.
Today the major portion of building licences issued, is to
cover works asked for on Sanitary Notices and the quantities of
controlled building materials required to comply with such
notices have to be agreed and certified by my staff.
During the year under review 13,194 Notices have been
served and 12,300 have been complied, a result, under the circumstances,
I consider, satisfactory. It was found necessary in 433
cases, for the Local Authority to do the works asked for on
Statutory Notices in default of owners.
On account of the abnormal number of "housing" complaints
it has not been possible to give attention, on a pre-war
scale to routine inspection of factories, workplaces, food premises,
etc., but the tables in this report will show that these have not
been neglected.
Rats and Mice Destruction has been given special attention,
An intensive attack on the sewer rat has been carried out and the
whole of the sewerage system of the Borough has been baited,
involving some 4,000 manholes and whilst it is too early yet to
finalise the results, indications are that it has been particularly
successful.
The Food Supply of the Borough has been supervised both
by inspection and by sampling. At the Abattoir a total of 25,822
animals have been slaughtered and all of these have been inspected
regarding their fitness for food. In addition, all the
meat passing through the Government Meat Depot, which serves
a population of 350,000, has also been inspected by my staff.
Food preparation premises and shops have also received