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in November and is to come into force on September 1st, 1961. In the
meantime, the first steps leading to the second area to be covered by an
order were taken before the end of the year. The Council has declared
its intention to have every part of the district in time included in an area
subject to a Smoke Control Order. Unless extra staff can be obtained,
or unless the immense volume of work to be done in connection with
the making of any order can be reduced it must be many years before
this programme can be carried out. Progress in connection with the
Slum Clearance Programme also has been very slow. This, of course,
is because of the Council's difficulties, because of shortage of available
houses, to rehouse the occupants of houses which have already been
condemned. There are many families today who are living in houses
which have been condemned. Until such time as they can be rehoused,
they are, in fact, worse off as the result of the Council's action because
in the meantime, the owners do not carry out any work to remedy the
very worst of the unfit conditions. Slow as is this progress towards
dealing with the 577 houses which figured in the original survey of J955,
circumstances have changed with the result that many of the 211 of these
577 houses in respect of which no action had been taken by the end of
the year can probably be taken out of the programme. It may well be
that the owners will recondition so many that half of these might be
saved and be used for many years to come. The Council has been
responsible for a very full health programme. Unfortunately it has not
been possible to recruit an Inspector to carry on the work on the lines
and on the scale it had developed, so this work has tended to fall behind.
While it is felt that the work can best be done by one who has had practical
experience as a Public Health Inspector, failing being able to recruit
someone with these qualifications and experience to engage on these
duties, it may be necessary to consider the appointment of a health
education officer without this experience. Much work was done during
the year of importance to the future arrangements of slaughtering in this
district.
The Ministry's trials of the effect on the teeth of children in those
areas in which the water supply has had fluoride added to it will shortly
be available. It will be of interest to see what encouragement is given to
those responsible for supplying water to carry out a similar practice and
so give the children in those areas the advantage of being only halt as
subject to caries of their teeth as are children of the same ages in those
districts today.
The Council and its Committees have been only indirectly concerned
with the work of the Harrow Old People's Welfare Committee, even
though activities of that body have been made possible very largely only
through the contributions of the Council. In future, the association will
be much closer, particularly as the reports of the Executive Committee
will be submitted to Committees of the Council. A big step forward was
taken by the Council's encouragement to the appointment of a Coordinating
Officer for the services of the aged. There is need though tor
much more work than this as someone must be responsible for seeing
to the problems of individual people. This is something which is not