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by the owner or occupier, be liable to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds:
Provided that the Court may suspend its final determination on condition
that the respondent undertakes to adopt within a reasonable time, such means
as the Court may deem practicable, and order to be carried into effect, for
abating the nuisance or mitigating or preventing the injurious effects of the
effluvia.
SECTION 147 requires every furnace used in the working of engines by
steam, and every furnace used in any public bath or washhouse, or in any mill,
factory, printing house, dyehouse, iron foundry, glasshouse, distillery, brewhouse,
sugar refinery, bakehouse gasworks, waterworks or other building used
for the purpose of trade or manufacture (although a steam engine is not used
therein), to be constructed so as to consume or burn as far as practicable the
smoke arising from the furnace, and provides for penalties against any person
(a) using any furnace which is not constructed so as to consume or burn
as far as practicable the smoke arising therefrom;
(b) so negligently using any such furnace that the smoke arising therefrom
is not effectively consumed or burnt; or
(c) carrying on any trade or business which occasions any effluvia or
otherwise annoys the neighbourhood or inhabitants without using the
best practicable means for preventing or counteracting the effluvia
annoyance,
SECTION l48 defines smoke nuisances which may be dealt with summarily
under the Act as
(a) any fireplace or furnace which does not, as far as practicable, consume
the smoke arising from the combustible used therein, and which
is used for working engines by steam, or in any mill, factory, dyehouse,
brewery, bakehouse or gaswork, or in any manufacturing or
trade process whatsoever;
(b) any chimney (not being the chimney of a private dwelling house or
the chimney of a ship habitually used as a sea-going ship) sending
forth smoke in such a quantity as to be a nuisance; and
(c) any chimney of a ship habitually used as a sea going ship sending
forth black smoke in such a quantity as to be a nuisance.
and sets out the following defences available to a person prosecuted under
this section:
(a) the fireplace or furnace is constructed in such a manner as to consume
as far as practicable having regard to the nature of the manufacture
or trade all smoke arising therefrom, and that the fireplace
or furnace has been carefully attended to by the person having
charge thereof and
(b) he has used the best practicable means for preventing the nuisance,
having regard to the cost and to local conditions and circumstances.
The meaning given to the following expressions should be noted:-
(a) "best practicable means" refers not only to efficiency of the plant
but also to the manner in which it is handled,
(b) "chimney" includes every structure or opening of any kind whatsoever
capable of emitting smoke and
(c) "smoke" includes soot, ash grit and gritty particles,
BY-LAWS REGULATING THE EMISSION OF SMOKE, MADE BY THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL
under the Public Health (Smoke Abatement) Act, 1926, and continued in force by
the Public Health (London) Act, 1936, define "smoke nuisance" as the emission
of black smoke for a period of two minutes in the aggregate within any continuous
period of thirty minutes from any one chimney of a building other than
a private dwelling-house. Buildings in which certain specified industrial
processes, e.g. smelting of ores and minerals, manufacture of glass, are
carried on are exempted from the provisions of the By-laws.