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ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH
Inspections and Complaints
The public health inspectors paid 58,790 visits to premises, including dwelling
house, business, industrial and food premises. Continued publicity and
encouragement from the Government in the sphere of home improvement
meant a substantial increase in the number of visits made by inspectors to
premises which might prove suitable for conversion or improvement.
Although many matters are resolved without the necessity of serving notices,
it was found necessary to serve 342 informal and 255 statutory notices,
which resulted in repairs to dwellings being effected. Legal proceedings were
instituted in eight cases.
Of the 8,512 complaints and requests for visits,1,851 were notifications of
blocked or defective drains. Although owners are responsible for clearing
drains the Council provides a service designed to eliminate possible hazards
to public health. (See Tables 38 and 39).
Noise
There is now an increasing awareness of noise and the nuisance and
annoyance it can cause. It is also being realised that modern techniques,
good planning and consideration for neighbours can do much to prevent
noise or bring it to acceptable levels. Seven hundred and forty-nine visits
were made during the year in connection with complaints of noise of various
kinds.
As in other years, refrigerating and ventilating plant, and circulating pumps in
launderettes, caused nuisance and annoyance to occupiers of adjoining
premises. Often, elementary precautions during installation would have
prevented trouble. In such cases, it is often found that the noise is related to
vibration being transmitted to the fabric of a building, resulting in the
generation of noise at some distance from the source. This can usually be
prevented by introducing flexible couplings on pipework and ducting and
ensuring that the motors are suitably mounted. There were also complaints
during the year from three separate sites where sheet pile driving operations
were carried out. Fortunately, this type of work is fairly rare, for the noise
produced by conventional impact pile driving is very great and there is a
high degree of metallic resonance. On the last occasion, after representations
by the Department, vibratory driving heads were used. This resulted in a
marked reduction of noise, the level being slightly less than that produced by
a road breaker fitted with an efficient muffler. There would seem to be a
case for advising that pile driving operations in the vicinity of dwellings
should be carried out either by vibratory or jacking methods.
There is an increasing willingness by industrialists and others to deal with
potentially noisy plant before it is installed. Not only does this save cause for
complaints arising, but it avoids heavy expenditure in altering plant after it
has been installed and is in operation. Several such cases were dealt with
during the year. These involved discussions with the Eastern Gas Board
regarding precautions to be taken at a gas decompression unit, where noise
from the plant might affect adjoining houses.
There was consultation between the Borough Architect and this Department
regarding the development of two sites for housing, and the noise levels
which might be anticipated from traffic on main roads in the vicinity. A
survey was made of the background noise levels in the area, including motor
and railway traffic noise, and this information will be used in designing the
buildings to ensure acceptable noise levels within the dwellings.
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