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Much of the illness which still besets us is due to man-made pollution.
More determined attempts to deal with food-borne illness have in recent
years been made in the raising of food hygiene standards and in improving
both the equipment and practices in the catering trades. Public conscience
at last seems to be awakening to the enormous price we pay in illhealth,
particularly in respiratory disease, for the daily pollution of the atmosphere.
The Clean Air Act, 1956 is a beginning of this process of enlightenment
and we have a long way to travel before the air we breathe is in any
way as pure as the water we drink. For too long a smoke-laden atmosphere
has been accepted as a necessary accompaniment of industrial
prosperity. Although the district is more favourably placed in this regard
than many, it suffers like all urbanised areas from the continuous and
insidious effects of domestic smoke. Recognising that this is not a problem
which can effectively be dealt with by individual districts alone, it is in
keeping with the Council's progressive practice that they have given full
support to those bodies, both national and regional, whose pioneering
exertions are at long last seeing some reward for their efforts and that they
have established apparatus for the collection of data on the extent of
atmospheric pollution for the common pool of reliable information without
which progress cannot be made.
An event which can have great health significance for the future, was
the assessment, as required by the Housing Repairs and Rents Act, 1954, of
the extent of unfit housing accommodation in the district and the proposals
for dealing with it. Some 200 dwellings are, or are likely to be, totally unfit
within the next five years. The crucial test as to the contribution this event
will make to the well-being of the community, will be found in the determination
with which the various planned phases of the scheme are pursued.
The difficulties are not few, not least the shortage of an adequate building
site to enable the scheme to commence, and doubtless many will arise
which cannot be foreseen, but the rewards in terms of health are sufficiently
attractive to justify an all-out effort to reach a successful solution of this
problem within the limits of time set themselves by the Council.
The staff of my department have continued to give that conscientious
and untiring assistance to which I have been accustomed for so long and I
tender to them once again my sincere thanks.
I am, Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Your obedient Servant,
F. LAWRENCE SMITH,
Medical Officer of Health.
July, 1956.
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