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Slaughterhouses
With the abolition of meat rationing and the decontrol of
meat and livestock which took place at the end of June, the
slaughter of meat for human consumption at government controlled
central slaughterhouses ceased.
The Government announced its intention to bring about what
is called "moderate concentration of slaughtering facilities
throughout the country", but stated that "this long-term policy
will take some years to apply and the immediate problem will be
to ensure that sufficient slaughtering facilities will be available
when the Ministry's control of slaughtering comes to an end in
July next. To achieve this it will be essential that very many
private slaughterhouses shall be brought into use".
So the abolition of private slaughterhouses and the building
of properly constructed and controlled abbatoirs have faded once
again into a dream of things to come.
As directed by the Minister of Food, a review of the
slaughtering requirements for the district was carried out, and,
arising therefrom, applications for licences for two slaughterhouses
were received.
These were considered by the Council, and after works of
repair and improvement had been carried out, licences were
granted to the occupiers.
It is interesting to note that although the local butchers'
organisation was approached with a view to the larger of the two
slaughterhouses being used by local traders, this was not taken
advantage of, and was in fact used by a firm outside the district
for slaughter for the wholesale trade, chiefly at Smithfield.
The coming into use of these slaughterhouses entailed a large
amount of additional work by the Sanitary Inspectors, both during
the evenings and at week-ends, as will be seen from the table
showing the numbers of animals slaughtered and the amount of
meat condemned for that part of the year, as compared with the
previous year. In 1953 one visit was made to slaughterhouses, as
against 309 in the period under review.
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