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3. In those industrial processes where special technical difficulties exist,
the responsibility for ensuring that the best practicable means of
prevention should be vested in a central inspectorate (the "Alkali
Inspectorate ").
4. The most efficient practicable methods of removing sulphur from
flue gases should be adopted at all new power stations in or near
populated areas.
5. The law for the control of smoke from railways, and of pollution from
colliery spoilbanks, should be brought up to date and strengthened.
Responsibility for enforcement should rest with the local authorities.
6. Local authorities should have power to establish (1) smokeless
zones in which the emission of smoke from chimneys would be
entirely prohibited, and (2) smoke control areas in which the use of
bituminous coal for domestic purposes would be restricted.
7. Financial assistance should be provided by local authorities and by
the Exchequer towards the costs incurred by house owners in converting
appliances in smokeless zones and smoke control areas.
8. Domestic heating appliances installed in all new premises should be
of approved types.
9. The present purchase tax of 50 per cent. on gas and electric (room
and water) heaters should be removed.
10. General responsibility for enforcing the law for the prevention of
smoke and grit should be placed as a statutory duty on the local
authorities, which should be required to submit annual reports on
their progress in smoke abatement to the appropriate Minister.
11. Penalties for smoke offences should be increased.
Most of the smoke and grit in the air comes from industrial undertakings
and the railways ; but the sulphur dioxide, the chief gaseous irritant, comes
also from domestic fires and from electricity power stations. In certain
circumstances (e.g., traffic-jams in the still air of streets) the calculated
concentration of the products of combustion of petrol and diesel-oil pollute
the air to an alarming extent. The erosion of stone and metal by the
sulphurous fumes from railway shunting yards is indicative of the damage
they must cause to the less resistant linings of the air passages of human
beings in the community.
Domestic smoke is discharged at a lower level than industrial smoke,
and consequently its harmful effects are greater. There is therefore little
justification for requiring industry and commerce to take all measures to
prevent smoke unless the problem of domestic smoke is also dealt with
energetically.
Local Authorities are recommended to make their new housing estates
smokeless by requiring the occupiers, as a condition of tenancy, to use only
smokeless fuels in the appliances with which they are provided. This
recommendation is based on experience in Bradford and Nottingham, where
this condition of tenancy has had good results.