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66
TO THE CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS
OF THE
Walthamstow Urban District Council.
Gentlemen,
In accordance with the regulations of the Local Government Board,
I have the honour to present my customary report of the work done
through your Sanitary Inspector's Department during the past year.
The responsible work of supervising sanitary conditions in the
various directions covered by my report under the provisions of the
Public Health Acts has been in my hands for twenty-five years,
the population meantime increasing from 30,000 to 130,000, and
inhabited houses from 4,000 to more than 22,000, and I desire most
gratefully to acknowledge the appreciative and encouraging reference
to my work made by your chairman, Councillor H. Brown, J,P., in his
annual report early in 1910.
While, of course, in so large a population, insanitary conditions are
continually arising to require our attention, the more serious structural
defects are gradually being removed and more opportunity afforded for
work in newer directions called for by new laws and higher modern
sanitary ideals. Of these, perhaps, the most important is the
supervision of our food supply, which year by year receives more of
our attention with, I believe, useful results. Six hundred and thirty-six
premises are under supervision in this connection.
I feel confidence in saying that, thanks to the importance attached
to all sanitary questions by the Council, Walthamstow will compare
favourably in these respects with any similarly situated district.
I would add that our work has been effected with a minimum of
necessity for appeal to legal proceedings, thanks very largely to the
interest and zeal displayed by my assistants at all times in their work.
Intimation notices to the number of 1011 have been issued, and
50 statutory notices have secured compliance with our requirements.
We have received 315 complaints of which 86 were anonymous,
with reference to the existence of nuisances within the district, and
only a few, 18, have been found to be without some foundation,
although by no means always to the extent suggested in the complaint.
I have the honour to remain, Gentlemen,.
Your obedient servant,
W. W. WEST.