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it could be felt by the end of the year that except for a part of Kenton
the demand was being adequately met.
The routine work of the sanitary department continued. In the
earlier part of the year we lost the services of Mr. P. Schofield who, prior
to amalgamation, had been Sanitary Inspector to the Wealdstone Urban
District, and, at the end of the year, Mr. J. E. Johnson, who had occupied
a similar post in the Hendon Rural District. In addition to their other
qualities both these inspectors possessed an intimate knowledge of the
district, a factor of inestimable value to a sanitary inspector and the loss
of these officers will be keenly felt. Reference is made in the body of the
Report to certain conditions arising out of the war which add to the
labours of the sanitary inspectors in their efforts to abate sanitary
nuisances to which householders are subjected, and to the transference
to this Council of the powers and duties of the County Council under the
Rats and Mice (Destruction) Act, a change which will add so substantially
to the work undertaken by the sanitary inspectors as will necessitate
later a considerable increase in their numbers. While war conditions
continue to prevent its being possible to take steps after routine housing
inspections so that these remain in abeyance, a preliminary survey has
been undertaken to try to ascertain the requirements of new housing to
replace that which should be condemned as being unfit for human
habitation. The standard on which ultimate judgment is made will of
course depend to some extent on the availability of alternative accommodation.
The number in the category of houses which will need more
urgent consideration is about a hundred, these being properties which it
is felt will with some urgency become the subject of Demolition or
Clearance Orders ; while there are another 630 which will need to be
considered from this aspect.
A number of White Papers have been published during the year
which, if the proposals are implemented, will affect the local health
services. The three most closely affecting these, namely, those on
Education, on the Health Services, and on Milk Control all point the
same way—to the curtailing of the powers of the smaller local authorities
by their transference to County Councils, to bodies larger than County
Councils or even to Central Departments. These changes probably make'
for ultimate benefit; certainly no local government administration if
started entirely afresh would be based on arrangements quite so seemingly
haphazard and apparently administratively untidy as those which are in
being—but which work—today. Less concern then might be felt for
the remote than for the immediate future. It seems that long before its
achievement in 1934 much had been heard of the amalgamation of
neighbouring districts. With the prospect of extinction or at least of
absorption before them, it is inevitable that authorities will be less
progressive, and more facilities might have been available for the
inhabitants of the three constituent districts by 1934 had the possibility
of amalgamation not acted as a curb. In the same way much annoyance
was suffered by local residents because before the sewage of the district
could be dealt with by the West Middlesex Drainage Scheme, the local
facilities for sewage disposal had been taxed to their utmost—and beyond.
Will the possibility that the proposals of the White Paper on the Health