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67
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH
The professional staffing situation in the Environmental
Health Department improved temporarily in 1971 enabling some
back log of work to be cleared and a greater degree of attention
to be paid to the important routine inspection of food shops,
offices and the like.
A systematic programme of inspection of houses used in
multiple occupation was commenced. The Inspectorate are very
concerned at the squalid conditions which exist in some parts of
the area due to the occupation by several families of properties
originally designed to accommodate only one family. Often they are
used with only the minimum of adaptation and there may be
considerable fire risk. The Council has adopted standards for
these houses and the aim must be to require all landlords to
carry out alterations to enable the properties to comply. Unfortunately,
the staff situation did not allow the programme to
continue but urgent cases continued to be dealt with.
It is not only in the field of housing that great demands are
being made on the Inspectors' time. We are living in an age
when the populace generally is becoming aware of the "environment"
in which they live and its importance to their health,
habits, comfort and, perhaps, their very existence.
This can do no harm. There are, and always will be, a multitude
of ways in which the environment can be improved. The
prophets of doom, who have so suddenly made themselves heard
must have been singularly obtuse not to have realised it long ago.
Their instant forecasts may turn out to be as inaccurate as the
tardiness which characterised their realisation of the problems.
In 1840 a select committee was formed "to enquire into the
circumstances affecting the health of the inhabitants of large
towns with a view to improved sanitary arrangements for their
benefit." It needed several years of agitating by Edwin Chadwick,
a civil servant, and others to translate the Committee's findings
into action which resulted in the first of many public health acts.
The first Medical Officer of Health was employed by Liverpool
in 1847 and this was followed by the appoinlment of
"Inspectors of Nuisances." Eventually, every local authority in
the land had officers capable of caring for the environment. These
men changed their names to "Sanitary Inspectors" and later to
"Public Health Inspectors." The nature of their duty did not
alter. Legal powers were granted sparingly and grudgingly but in
the years which have elapsed more and more weapons have been
added to the Inspector's armoury.
Firstly, the water supply was cleaned up in the country and
water-borne cholera became a scourge of the past. The grosser