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50
available hot water. The Housing Act informs us that
sanitary defects " include, among other things, absence of
adequate and readily accessible water supply or sanitary
accommodation, or of other conveniences, and it is difficult with
regard to the latter term to question the fitness of a house
mainly on the grounds that it lacks a bath room or a proper
supply of hot water.
I believe that if the morbidity rate for respiratory disease
and the various problems of personal cleanliness are to be
adequately solved in the future, the proper supply of hot water
to, or better still the whole heating of the house will have
to be tackled municipally.
Much of the report is of necessity discoursive, but I would
suggest that priorities lie in the scheme for collection and
disposal of house refuse, the maternity home, and the central
public health centre.
I am,
Your obedient Servant,
REGINALD LEADER,
Medical Officer of Health.
October, 1944.
HOUSE REFUSE.
1. Collection :
The type of transport to be used for Refuse Collection in
the Borough should only be selected after a costed try-out, to
suit the local conditions and all they may mean in terms of
set-back of properties, location of receptacles, peculiarities in
the nature of narrow lanes, storage on or access to premises,
length of man travel, stof losses of vehicles, gradients, lengths
of haul, and the need for silent operation.
Length of haul or the average distance to be traversed
between the collection area and the disposal-point, is a fundamental
consideration and its effect may rule out one form of
transport or maximise the merits of another.
Having regard to the inaccessibility by refuse vehicles to
traverse the many uneven and sunken back passages in the
borough, it is imperative that an improvement be effected by
surfacing and levelling the passages in question. I would
recommend that due regard be had to this important aspect in
refuse collection which has become considerably aggravated
during the past few years.