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18
During the year arrangements were made for the examination of
165 employees or prospective employees (39 permanent and 126 temporary).
Home Safety.
The Heating Appliances (Fireguards Act) 1952 came into force
on 1st October 1953 and will be capable of full implementation as
from 1st October, 1954.
We were during the year privileged to have a talk from Dr. C. A.
Boucher of the Ministry of Health on this subject. Representatives
of many local voluntary bodies attended and showed a keen appreciation
of the information given whilst they also seemed particularly
interested as to how further steps to follow up the talk were going to
be taken.
It is perhaps unfortunate that full consideration of this important
subject should inevitably establish the inadequacies of a local authority
to deal with it comprehensively. Local Health Authorities have
wider powers in this regard and although in general public health
propaganda we can and do exercise our own rights directly, in home
safety affairs an authority such as ours is permitted only to contribute
(and this subject to due permission) to an independent Committee.
It may well be that our Council would in any event have decided that
the setting up of such a Committee represented the best means of
ensuring widespread public support and would have adopted this
course as the one of election. At least, however, it should have had
freedom to make up its own mind as to what was the best method of
approach and to deal with the subject within discretionary limits
wide enough to be appropriate to the importance and complexity of
the issue at stake.
Needless to remark the possibility of encouraging the formation
of an independent Committee is being pursued and one hopes that a
successful outcome will in the near future result.
Canvey Island Floods.
Although not coming strictly within the terms of this section
of the report mention must be made of the very severe flooding which
arose along the East coast in February 1953 when Canvey Island was
badly hit. As a result problems of hygiene arose which necessitated
help being drafted to that area from outside. Under arrangements
co-ordinated by the County Council we lent the services of a Sanitary
Inspector for some 5½, weeks. This represented only that part of
the assistance given by Hornchurch with which I am competent to
deal and the whole story of the floods has been and doubtless will
again be authoritatively told elsewhere.
It is reassuring to see how a happening such as this brings out
an immediate, spontaneous and generous response and to feel that
this would happen whenever and wherever the occasion arose.