[Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Hertfordshire County Council.

  • Hertfordshire (England). County Council. n 50062101.
Date:
1959
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Hertfordshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    75/78 (page 73)
    The ten failures from “ fill and empty ” pools included three from a small pool built by voluntary effort and completed during the summer. The trouble was due to lack of chlorine in the water but as soon as the “ chlorination drill ” was perfected, the sampling results were satisfactory. In spite of this it was decided that a circulation system with sand filter and chlorination plant would be installed and this will be ready for the 1960 season. Our policy of insisting that those school swimming baths which are built by voluntary effort be fitted with blanked-off inlets and conventional outlets pays good dividends when modern treatment plants are installed at a later date. The installation can be carried out with a minimum of trouble as the circulation pipes are already in place and simple connections only have to be made. Of the pools now in use twenty which are open to the general public use the continuous flow purification system. One privately-owned pool, in the north of the County which is available for use by schoolchildren has a modern circulation and purification plant. The school swimming baths include seven which are provided with continuous flow purification systems. During the year four new pools were completed by Parent Teacher Associa- tion effort. Two of these are of the teaching ” type while the other two are suitable for more serious swimming and are equipped with continuous circula- tion systems with automatic filtration and chlorine dosing. This makes a total of eight swimming pools which have now been completed by voluntary effort at the schools and these are all of an excellent standard of workmanship. Photographs of a teaching ” pool and a more advanced pool, both built by voluntary labour, are shown in the body of this report. In the last ten years the number of swimming pools available to County schoolchildren has increased from twenty-two to forty-two, and control is becoming quite an item in the public health work in the County. The County Health Inspector was recently asked to give an address on the subject to his Association. The address was later published in the Medical Officer on 17th April, 1959, and the demand for copies was such that reprints had to be obtained. Refuse Disposal. The deposit of refuse imported from one district to another is prohibited under Section 26 of the Hertfordshire County Council Act, 1935, unless consent is issued by the County Council. These consents can stipulate certain conditions which must be observed when the refuse is tipped and enable operations to be controlled in such a way so as to prevent nuisances arising. During the year three new consents were issued for the disposal of putrescible material and two new consents for the disposal of non-putrescible material. One of these latter consents was for the tipping of power station ash which is removed in the form of a slurry and pumped into a wet gravel pit. The slurry gradually settles and lifts the floor of the site and, in fact, there is now a small area of “ reclaimed ” land which can later be covered with top soil and restored for agricultural use. The process will be a very slow one. During the year 410 visits were made to refuse tips by Officers of the Department. One of the problems which we meet occasionally is the difficulty which District Councils have in finding employees to carry out the manual work of refuse collection and disposal. In these days of full employment a dustman’s job is rather looked down on and manual workers can usually find something more pleasant and better paid. The shortage of labour has a direct effect on the refuse collection services and while most District Councils try to maintain a weekly collection of household and trade refuse, this falls down from time to time through workers leaving for other employment. Now that much of the refuse from the District Councils is handled by private firms at large central