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Recently, however, the House of Commons approved of such
a power of veto being placed in a Private Bill presented by the
Surrey County Council and it is hoped that such a precedent created
in a Private Bill will become the law generally and so enable steps
to be taken to deal with a procedure which is a disgrace to modern
public health administration.
Smoke Abatement.—There are few factories in the Borough,
but observations are from time to time made on the chimneys.
During the year representations were made regarding three factories
emitting black smoke. In one case black smoke was being
emitted as heavy loads of steam were required at certain
times and consequently the furnace required an abnormal quantity
of fuel to keep up the pressure. A smoke prevention apparatus
was installed in connection with this boiler and proved to be very
satisfactory in use. In the second instance the furnace was already
provided with steam jets but they had not been used for a considerable
time. On being again brought into use the desired effect was
obtained. The third offence was caused by bad stoking and
considerable improvement was obtained by giving advice to the
stoker on the firing of his furnace.
The Byelaw under Section 2 of the Public Health (Smoke
Abatement) Act, 1926, made by the Town Council came into
operation during the year. This provides that a nuisance shall
be presumed when black smoke is emitted for a period of two
minutes in the aggregate within any continuous period of thirty
minutes from any one chimney in a building other than a private
dwelling house or a building used for the manufacture of glass
not being a building used for steam raising.
Premises and Occupations which can be Controlled by
Byelaws and Regulations.—There are no common lodging
houses in the Borough and there are no Byelaws with respect to
houses let-in-lodgings.
There is only one kind of offensive trade carried on in the
Borough, namely, fish-frying, which is conducted in 19 separate
premises. During the year 9 applications to establish fish-frying
businesses were dealt with but only in two instances was permission