London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Hackney 1959
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hackney]
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67
Smoke Control Areas - Programme
On the 26th January, 1959, the Minister of Housing and Local Government
issued Circular No. 5/59 in which he stated that he had reviewed the progress
made in establishing smoke control areas since the powers of section 11 of the
Clean Air Act, 1956, became available to local authorities on 31st December,
1956. The Minister expressed the hope that it would be possible to make
faster progress especially in removing the smoke pall from the "black areas"
where air pollution is worst The task of bringing under smoke control the
large number of premises involved is a considerable one, and in the Minister's
view it needs to be systematically planned and executed by local authorities
The Minister therefore asked that councils in "black areas" (which includes the
Metropolitan area) should consider their domestic smoke problem as a whole (if
they had not already done so) and decide on the smoke control orders that were
needed, in what order of priority they should be made, and how many years it
was likely to take to finish the job; and that they should then prepare
a phased programme for establishing smoke control areas over the next
five years
Following consideration of this Circular, the Public Health Committee
recommended that, subject to the requisite financial resources being available,
smoke control areas should be established as peripheral extensions to the
present central smoke control areas, thereby in the course of five years
covering the whole of the borough. This recommendation was adopted by the
Council on 24th June, 1959, and the following proposals were accordingly
submitted to the Minister:-
These proposals envisaged the Council's programme as a seven year plan ending in 1965, and the financial implications were estimated as follows:-
| Year | Smok e Control areas to be established | (a) Owner or Occupier's con tribution | (b) Exchequer°s con tri bu tion | (c) Borough CounciI ' s con t ri bu tion | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NO. | £ | s. | d. | £ | £ | s. | d. | |
| 1959 | 1 | 5,344 | 10 | 0 | 7, 126 | 5,344 | 10 | 0 |
| 1960 | 2 | 8,641 | 0 | 0 | 12,811 | 10,575 | 0 | 0 |
| 1961 | 3 | 26,935 | 0 | 0 | 37,654 | 29,547 | 0 | 0 |
| 1962 | 4 | 31, 932 | 0 | 0 | 44,632 | 34,998 | 0 | 0 |
| 1963 | 5 | 26,531 | 0 | 0 | 37,895 | 30,311 | 0 | 0 |
| 1964 | 6 | 35,646 | 0 | 0 | 48,927 | 37,746 | 0 | 0 |
| 1965 | 7 | 29, 521 | 0 | 0 | 44,833 | 37,728 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | estimated cost | £164,550 | 10 | 0 | £233,878 | £186,249 | 10 | 0 |
The estimated costs for the areas numbered 3 to 7 were based on an
average of £14 per unit of accommodation and on the assumption that some 80%
of the privately owned units would require adaptation.
The following is the proposed stage by stage programme for covering the
whole of the borough by Smoke Control Orders