[Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Bebington Borough.

  • Bebington (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1959
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Bebington Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/66 (page 3)
    THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS OF THE BOROUGH OF BEBINGTON Your Worship, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have pleasure i»t submitting the Annual Report for the year 1959. Whilst 1959 was not such a spectacular year as 1958 with its ‘ 'alarums and excursions”, such as smallpox, the more important routine work of the department continued. Bebington is fortunate in its comparative youth as a large borough in that it does not have the legacy of housing from the 19th century and slum clearance is not the problem that it is elsewhere. However, one quite large area, one that was a small legacy from the 19th century, was represented in the early part of the year and it is rather unfortunate that at the time of writing the final decision has not been promulgated. This hits the tenants of this type of property very badly as naturally owners will scarcely do the very barest of essential repairs after they know the property is likely to be demolished. Progress on clean air was rather slower than was hoped in that the first part to be designated as a Smoke Control Area, namely. Abbots Grange prefabricated bungalow estate, whilst approved during the year, only comes into operation in August, I960. However, proposals have been agreed by the Council to a five year programme covering much of Lower and Higher Bebington and it is hoped that ultimately, within a period of twenty years, the whole borough will be a Smoke Control Area. There is still much education to be done in this field but there is a rapidly increasing number of householders and their wives who appreciate the benefits of using smokeless fuels and the public as a whole are becoming much more aware and expressive of the nuisance caused by smoke and other air pollutants and are slowly realising that much of the nuisance comes from the house chimney. The department has continued to improve the knowledge of the public and the food trade on matters of food hygiene and whilst there is still too large a gap between the best and the worst the general standard is rising all the time. Like housing, much of this problem is due to overcrowd- ing of the premises. Comments are made in the report about the statistics. Each year our own figures differ slightly from the Registrar General’s, usually not enough to make a significant difference. The reason for this discrepancy is hard to determine, much checking and cross checking is done in the office. However, the point that must be made is that when doing calcu- lations for tables such as numbers II, III, and IV the local figures have to be used. Only then do we have all the necessary facts and so some of the totals in the Vital Statistics of the area do not agree exactly with those in the tables. The department has been fortunate in that staff has been stable over the year with a resultant smoothness in the execution of the work. The