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FRIERN BARNET URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL.
PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT,
TOWN HALL,
N. 11.
19th. October 1944.
To the Chairman and Members of the
Friern Barnet Urban District Council.''
Gentlemen,
This report is considerably delayed this year, owing
to reduced war-time staff, and the long illness and subsequent
death of your Medical Officer of Health, Dr. G, Pennant Evans.
It covers the period from January 1st. 1945, to
December 51st. 1943, inclusive, and will follow the usual
abbreviated form in accordance with Circular 10/44 issued in
February 1944.. No figures will bo given from which the population
of the district or its wards, can bo inferred, and no data
supplied by the Registrar General will bo included.
"Although the country has been at war for over four
years, the health of the district has not: deteriorated, and the
incidence of notifiable disease has been very satisfactory.
The usual sanitary services such as sewage disposal,
water supply and public cleansing, have boon maintained, and in
addition, very satisfactory work has been carried out in the
collection of materials for the war effort, in the form generally
known as salvage, with the result that vacant building sites,
and privately owned open spaces of unfenced small plots of
land, are at this time free from the "junk" that looks so
unsightly, and encourages insect and other like pests. In this
connection we had a considerable number of complaints in the
late summer and early autumn, from residents in the Crescent
area, of an infestation of crickets migrating from the controlled
tip on the Central Ward allotments. Mr. Harman, your sanitary
inspector, together with Mr. Marshall, your surveyor, investigated
and found that the fermenting refuse generated so much heat,
that the insects were attracted to and bred on the tip, especially
beneath the sleeper road and platform. All herbage both on and
around the tip was cut down, dried and burnt. The sides of the
tip wore opened to allow the heat to disperse and bring it down
to manageable proportions. The whole tip was sprayed heavily
with creosote and oil, and the sleeper roads gassed under
tarpaulin, with a mixture of powdered calcium and sodium cyanides,
with the result that the tip was cleared of crickets in less than
a week, subsequently the top of the tip was covered with a
substantial layer of clay, above the daily cover of soil, and
eventually the clay was again covered with garden soil before
the plots were handed over. Wo found that this procedure reduced
the temperature of the first foot of soil from 83 Fah. to 59 Fah.
which was practically air temperature. Since then the tip has
had additional spraying, and additional cover provided to the
previously tipped area, and the Officers concerned are satisfied
that there is no infestation of crickets on that portion of the
tip, made since the late summer of 1942.
The Council has now become the local authority for
the administration of the Rats & Mice (Destruction) Act, and
Infestation orders made by the Ministry of Food.
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