View report page

83
fuel or fuels. The Corporation may bear the cost or part of the cost of
work of adaptation, and there may be provisions to enable a tenant
incurring expenses to vary the agreement of tenancy. All premises
within the area shall be subject to the Order unless specially excluded.
Two towns, Coventry and Manchester, already have established
zones. By the end of 1953 17 other towns had secured powers to
establish zones and a number of other towns were seeking similar powers.
Both towns that established zones took steps to enlarge the areas. Nottingham
have in effect secured a smokeless zone without legislation
because on a large post-war housing estate the use of smokeless fuels
in the suitable appliances provided is made a condition of tenancy.
Bradford has imposed similar conditions on the tenants of a post-war
housing estate.
The interim report of the Beaver Committee said: " The cause and
remedies of pollution by smoke are known. The problem is one of
practicability and economics and of the education of the whole community."
The following extracts are taken from the final report of the
committee, being those which are of more especial concern to a district
such as this, which is not heavily industrialised and therefore one in
which much of the smoke nuisance comes from the domestic chimney.
An early paragraph in the report says:—" In presenting this report we
wish to state our emphatic belief that air pollution on the scale with
which we are familiar in this country to-day is a social and economic
evil which should no longer be tolerated, and that it needs to be combated
with the same conviction and energy as were applied one hundred
years ago in securing pure water."
This is encouraging as showing an altered outlook about this
nuisance. The four thousand deaths from the fog of December, 1952,
will not have been in vain if they have led to public opinion accepting
this position.
That more attention should be given to the pollution by the domestic
chimney especially in a district such as this in indicated by the following
paragraph in the report:—"We have made it clear that much can be
done to reduce industrial smoke. But nearly half of all the smoke in
the air comes from domestic chimneys. The proportion is greater in
areas where houses predominate. Further, most of the domestic smoke
is produced during the winter months when foggy conditions are most
likely to occur. Although the smoke from domestic chimneys is less
dense than that from industrial chimneys, it is discharged at a low level
and its harmful effects are thereby accentuated. No cure can, therefore,
be found for the heavy smoke pollution of our cities and towns unless
the domestic chimney is dealt with. In our view there would be little
justification for requiring industry and commerce to take all possible
measures to prevent smoke, often at considerable cost, if the problem of
domestic smoke were not also tackled."
There seems to be too great a willingness to do nothing because we
in this country will never agree to do without our coal fires, or because
there is no satisfactory alternative, or because there are no adequate
supplies of smokeless fuels, or if there are that they will cost that much
more than coal, While under 20 per cent. of coal consumed in Great