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East Barnet Urban District Council
REPORT
of the
CHIEF PUBLIC HEALTH INSPECTOR
FOR THE YEAR 1964
To the Chairman and Members of the
East Barnet Urban District Council
I have the honour to present this, my thirteenth and last annual
report, to the Council. With the commencement of a new inspector on
the 1st January, the department was for the first time in 6 months at
full establishment.
The report is set out in its usual pattern, the tables giving in detail
the work of the department. These tables are commented upon in
the body of the report. For the past few years, housing held a major
place in the department's activities and this work has now been
considerably reduced as the programme has been completed. Clean
Air, however, still continues to absorb a considerable amount of time
and the Council's programme for the establishment of Smoke Control
Areas, which it was intended would cover the whole of the district
by 1971, proceeded to schedule.
In 1954 this Council became a Food and Drugs Authority. The main
purpose of the original Food and Drugs Act, 1875, was to prevent
the gross adulteration of foods and drugs sold at that time, and in
those days at least 20% of samples submitted for analysis were found
to be adulterated. Today, the national average of unsatisfactory
samples is something under 5%. The excessive adulteration of those
early days has given way to the more insidious means of deception,
such as mis-description and over-exaggerated claims on labels and in
advertisements. Whilst it has not been found necessary to institute
legal proceedings for false labelling, the department has taken informal
action in a number of cases and in every instance, proper labelling
resulted.
The Noise Abatement Act, which I mentioned in the last report,
has, as forecast, resulted in an increase in the number of complaints.
The majority of complaints could not be classed as statutory nuisances.
However, occasionally a complaint of noise is close to being a
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