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anthracite, briquetted fuels carbonised in the process of manufacture,
coke, electricity, gas, low temperature carbonisation fuels and low
volatile steam coals.
Local authorities may make a grant in respect of private dwellings,
churches and buildings used by charities etc., for the cost of adapting
fireplaces so as to enable them to comply with the regulations of a smokecontrol
area. The grant may be anything between seven-tenths and the
whole of the cost. If it should be necessary, the local authority may order
the necessary work to be done or carry it out themselves in which case
they can recover three-tenths of the cost. The local authority may then
claim from the Government four-sevenths of what they have to pay out in
respect of privately owned houses, and two-fifths of what they have paid
out for houses owned by themselves.
The very real obstacle to progress on these lines is the difficulties
householders experience in the winter months in obtaining their supplies
of smokeless fuels, difficulties which may be the result of inadequate
amounts of the fuel in parts of the country or of difficulties in transport.
"The practicability of much of the domestic aspect of our clean air policy
depends on the supply, the price and the quality of smokeless fuels and
especially of solid smokeless fuels." The Minister of Fuel and Power is
setting up machinery to promote co-ordination between producers,
distributors and local authorities to ensure that the smokeless fuel
produced will be available at the right places.
Apart from anything that is to be done to improve conditions as
they are now, the Act gives powers for steps to be taken which should
result in the position not deteriorating. In regard to domestic premises
by Section 104 (2) of the Public Health Act, 1936, building byelaws may
require the provision in new buildings other than private houses of such
arrangements for heating or cooking as are calculated to prevent or reduce
the emission of smoke. Section 24 of the Clean Air Act enables local
authorities to make building byelaws to extend the requirements to private
houses, and the Minister has prepared model byelaws. As to industrial
smoke, Section 3 of the Act requires all new furnaces (except domestic)
to be capable of being operated continuously without emitting smoke
when burning fuel of a type for which they were designed. Section 10
enables authorities to control the heights of chimneys (not of residences,
shops or offices) so as to prevent as far as practicable the smoke, grit and
dust and gases from being prejudicial to health or a nuisance.
The recommendation of the Beaver Committee accepted by the
Government about the scheduling of further industries under the Alkali
Act with the responsibility for smoke prevention from these falling to the
Alkali Expectorate has led to some controversy. The case for the
arrangement is that the problem of these special processes is not merely
one of seeing that the particular works complies with the law, but it is a
mattter of devising and applying means for reducing the pollution in those
cases where there are special technical difficulties. Local authorities
will not be left out as they will still have concurrent powers in regard to
smoke, grit and dust.
While much progress will no doubt be made under these new powers
to reduce obvious atmospheric pollution, little perhaps will have been