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66
SMOKE ABATEMENT AND AIR POLLUTION
The legal powers for dealing with smoke abatement and air pollution in a
metropolitan borough in the Year under review were those contained in the
PUBLIC HEALTH (LONDON) ACT, 1936.
SECTION 137 (Nuisance arising from offensive trade). Where any premises
used for any trade, business, process or manufacture causing effluvia are
certified to a sanitary authority by a district medical officer of health, or
by any two legally qualified medical practitioners, or by any ten inhabitants
of the district of the authority, to be a nuisance or injurious or dangerous to
the health of any of the inhabitants of the district (whether the premises are
situate in or outside the district or the county), the authority shall make a
complaint to a petty sessional court within whose jurisdiction the premises are
situate; and if it appears to the court that the trade, business, process or
manufacture carried on by the respondent is a nuisance, or causes effluvia
which are a nuisance or injurious or dangerous to the health of any of the
inhabitants, then, unless it is shown that the respondent has used the best
practicable means for abating the nuisance or preventing or counteracting the
effluvia, the person so offending shall, if he is the owner or occupier of the
premises or a foreman or other person employed 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 (Furnaces and steam vessels to consume their own smoke). 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 manu
facture (although a steam engine is not used therein), must be constructed so
as to consume or burn as far as practicable the smoke arising from the furnace,
and provision is made 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 noxious or
offensive effluvia, or otherwise annoys the neighbourhood or inhabitants,
without using the best practicable means for preventing or counteracting
the effluvia or annoyance,
SECTION 148 (Smoke nuisances) 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 seagoing 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 manner as to consume