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(11) Local Authorities should be required to submit annual reports on
their progress in smoke abatement to the appropriate Minister.
(12) Penalties for smoke offences should be increased.
B. OTHER RECOMMENDATIONS
(1) The following documents should be prepared and issued by the British
Standards Institution:-
(a) codes of practice indicating the extent to which smoke can be
reduced with good practice, and the means of securing such
reductions.
(b) Standard specifications for smoke indicators, recorders and
alarms.
(2) The British Standards Institution should also consider devising
simpler standard methods of sampling flue gases to determine grit emissions.
(3) Stoking should be recognised as an operation requiring skill and
firemen should be properly trained and remunerated.
(4) The Government Loan Scheme for approved fuel-saving equipment in
industry should be extended to include equipment installed for the purpose of
reducing air pollution.
(5) Consideration should be given to allowing the whole of the capital
cost of new plant and equipment installed to save fuel and to prevent smoke to
be charged against revenue for tax purposes in the year in which the expenditure
is incurred.
(6) The most efficient practicable methods of removing sulphur from flue
gases should be adopted at all new power stations in or near populated areas.
(7) The factor of pollution should be taken into account when future
schemes for the electrification of the railways are being considered and the
programme of electrification should be accelerated and extended. The changeover
from steam to diesel shunting locomotives should be accelerated.
(8) The present law for the control of pollution by motor vehicles should
be more rigorously enforced.
(9) The prevention of domestic smoke will require the replacement of
bituminous coal now used in domestic premises in the "black areas" by smokeless
fuels, and also the provision of new appliances, fitted with easy means of
ignition, in which such fuels can be burnt satisfactorily. This should be
secured by the progressive extension of smokeless zones and smoke control areas
as increased supplies of smokeless fuels are made available.
(10) The British Standards Institution should prepare specifications and
methods of testing for coke for household use and for domestic solid fuel
appliances.
(11) Clean air should be the declared national policy and it should be
recognised both by the Government and the nationalised fuel industries as an
essential element in fuel policy in the future.
(12) Local authorities should employ adequate smoke-control staffs with
the proper training and technical qualifications.
(13) Arrangements should be made to secure effective co-ordination as
between local authorities in the black areas and especially in Greater London.
(14) Development and research work on the many technical problems now outstanding
should be undertaken or accelerated.
(15) A "Clean Air Council" should be established to co-ordinate and
encourage research work and to review the progress made in implementing any new
legislation.
EXISTING STATUTORY POWERS. The legal powers for dealing with smoke abatement
and air pollution in a metropolitan borough at the present time are as follows:
PUBLIC HEALTH (LONDON) ACT, 1936. SECTION 137 (1) enacts:
Where any premises used for any trade, business, process or manufacture
causing effluvia, are certified to a sanitary authority by a district medical