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67
(B) MEAT
Slaughtering facilities
The Slaughterhouses Act 1958 required the Council to review and,
after consultation with such organisations as appeared to them to represent
the interests concerned, to report to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food on (a) the existing and probable future requirements of the
Borough for slaughterhouse facilities and (b) the slaughterhouse facilities
which are, or are likely to become, available to meet these requirements.
Both the Planning and Public Health Committees favoured the construction
in the district of a single suitably-sited slaughter house which
would enable the existing slaughterhouses, which are not well sited, to be
closed. The Minister appointed January 1962 as the date upon which the
construction regulations for the bringing up to today's standards, should
apply to the slaughterhouses in the district.
The licences for the slaughterhouses at 7 Northolt Road, 46 High
Street Wealdstone and 87 Stanmore Hill were renewed. No application
was received for the renewal of the licence of the slaughterhouse in Dennis
Lane.
Inspection of Meat
The total number of animals slaughtered last year at the slaughterhouses
was 7,411. The figure for 1960 was 6,094. The number of cattle
killed rose from the previous year's figure of 917 to 1,109; this is not a
satisfactory feature as these are the animals with which the local
slaughterhouses are least equipped to deal in large numbers. The
number of sheep killed rose from 3,202 to 4,303. The number of pigs 1,558
and calves 438 were much the same as the figures for the previous year.
The incidence of tuberculosis in cattle has continued to fall. This
trouble was, in fact, found in only one of the 1,109 beasts killed. None was
found in the cows or calves and only twelve in the 1,558 pigs killed, an
incidence of 0.8% contrasted with the figure of 2.35 in 1960. Fifteen
cases of cysticercus bovis in cattle which cause a tape worm in man, were
found, a percentage of 1.35, a figure slightly below that of the previous
year. In six the carcases were submitted to treatment by freezing. The
incidence of other diseases in cattle, other than cows, fell from a figure of
33.5% in 1959 to 20% in I960. There was a further fall this last year to
17%. The percentage figure in cows was the same at 33.3%; in pigs 23.0,
a rise on the previous year's eighteen; and in sheep the figure was the same
as in the previous year, 4%.
All condemned meat was destroyed by incinerator at the Wembley
Destructor.
The following is a summary of the return, to the Minister, of the
findings of the post-mortem examination of animals in slaughterhouses:—