View report page

23
The cost of rodent control at business premises (£739 19s. 7d.) was recovered from the occupiers.
The total cost of rodent control at private dwellings was £530 5s. 1d. The service is free to occupiers
of private dwellings; the Borough Council recovers 50% of the cost from the Ministry.
The work of rodent control in the Council's sewers is carried out by the Borough Engineer's Department.
Where surface rat infestation is due to faulty connections in house drainage systems, the Borough
Engineer's Department arranges for the opening of the pavement.
Ice Cream Premises
The Food and Drugs Act, 1938, and the Ice Cream (Heat Treatment etc.) Regulations, 1947-51,
control the manufacture and sale of ice cream. They regulate the conditions for the preparation, heat treatment,
freezing and storage of ice cream. The shortage of equipment caused a postponement of the date
(until 1st March, 1951) when indicating and recording thermometers had to be installed in ice cream manufactories;
temperature records at all stages of manufacture must now be available for inspection at all times.
The ice cream sold in the borough is largely pre-packed and manufactured outside the district. The
standard of purity was high during the year.
Eighteen premises were registered for storage for sale, bringing the total number to 267. In addition
19 premises remained on the register for manufacturingpurposes. They are frequently inspected; 8 samples
of ice cream were taken and the results proved satisfactory.

Milk and Dairies Regulations 1949
The milk trading methods in the Borough have undergone marked changes over a period of many
years; the sale of loose milk by hand measure over the shop counter, and from churns carried in carts, are
now things of the past. These methods were gradually replaced by milk delivered in bottles to the house;
the traders purchased bulk milk either processed or raw, and then bottled the milk on their own premises.
The next step has been the bottling of the milk by large processing and bottling dairies and its distribution
in these bottles to dealers, who are now relieved of the job of storing the milk in bulk, filling the bottles and
cleaning them : they merely act as distributors of full milk bottles and as collectors of the empties.
The Milk and Dairies Regulations, 1949, made under sections 20 and 92 of the Foods and Drugs
Act, 1938, exclude shops which sell milk in sealed bottles as delivered to the shop from the definition of
dairies; the purveyor of milk must however still register with the local authority.
An additional measure designed to ensure a safe milk supply for areas including Willesden was the
Declaration of London (including Middlesex) district as a Specified Area by the Minister of Food in which
he declared that all milk "sold by retail within these areas after 1st October, 1951, must be special
designated milk, namely, sterilised milk, pasteurised milk, tuberculin tested milk, or accredited milk from a
single herd." The sale of raw milk in Willesden is now prohibited. This regulation is. related specifically to the
spread of bovine tuberculosis. The number of cases of bovine tuberculosis caused by infected milk is not
definitely known; but the Royal Commission which investigated this problem in 1934, estimated that 1,5002,000
deaths and about 41,000 cases every year could be traced to this source of infection.
It may be some considerable time before this country will have herds of dairy cattle free from
tuberculosis, and the prohibition of the sale of raw milk is the only safe course of preventing the disease.
The cost of pasteurisation is amply repaid in the saving of lives and in the costs of hospital treatment, etc.
The only milk other than heat-treated milk which can be considered safe from tuberculosis is TuberculinTested
Milk, produced from herds which are frequently tested for tuberculosis.
The bottling and processing dairies and the premises selling bottled milk are regularly inspected.
During 1951 four dairy premises were found to have defective walls and other defects, but all were
remedied during the year.
DAIRIES : REGISTRATION AND LICENCES
Premises in Willesden 95
Dairymen 74
Licences issued:
Pasteurised milk 79
Sterilised milk 83
Tuberculin tested milk 64
Premises outside Willesden 11
Dairymen 5
Licences issued:
Pasteurised milk 11
Sterilised milk 11
Tuberculin tested milk 11
No application for registration of premises in connection with the manufacture of preserved food, etc.,
was received in 1951.