[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Enfield].

  • Enfield (London, England). London Borough.
Date:
[1969?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Enfield]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    91/219 (page 87)
    rather than from inadequate plant, or inefficient boiler management. In cases of obdurate technical difficulty owners can avail themselves of the services of the National Fuel Efficiency Service, who will survey plant and diagnose faults. The needs of public health necessitate the proper dispersion of the gaseous effluents from combustion and this can only be achieved by adequate chimney heights. To ensure a satisfactory chimney height for this purpose provision is made in Section 10 of the Act that when plans for industrial premises, incorporating the construction of a chimney for the dispersal of smoke, grit, dust or gases are submitted for Building Regulation approval, the Council must be satisfied that the height of the chimney will be sufficient to prevent nuisance, having due regard to the height and proximity of neighbouring buildings, etc. Aesthetic considerations may be a complicating factor and if the high chimney is unacceptable, an alternative form of providing heat will have to be considered. Chimney heights are calculated in accordance with the advice given in a Ministry memorandum and there is general acceptance of these standards which apply to all new chimneys. Unfortunately, there is at present no similar requirement where new furnaces are installed using the existing chimney. The new plant may be consider ably larger than the former plant and may discharge into a chimney which was already too low. Every effort is made to achieve improvements but high chimneys are expensive and power to enforce an increase in the height of the chimney in such circumstances is lacking in existing legislation. During the year 28 plans incorporating chimneys were submitted and all were approved—eight only after amendment. Section 3 of the Act requires that new furnaces (except those of domestic capacity) must, as far as practicable, be capable of being operated without emitting smoke when burning fuel of a type for which the furnace is designed; it is an offence to install such furnaces without previously notifying the local authority but whilst notification is obligatory, the submission of plans for approval is optional. Twenty-five notifications of intended installations were received. In respect of these, twenty-one plans were submitted for approval. Following slight amendments in some cases, approval was granted in all but two instances. Circular 52/67, issued jointly by the Ministry of Housing and Local Govern ment and the Welsh Office, dealt with the reduction of air pollution by grit and dust discharged from boiler and furnace chimneys. This circular, entitled Grit and Dusts ,supplements the Explanatory Memor andum on the industrial provisions of the Clean Air Act, 1956, and is based on the report of a Working Party which the Clean Air Council agreed should be set up to consider ways and means of measuring grit and dust emissions and to advise on appropriate levels of emission. 87