[Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Leeds City.

  • Leeds City Council
Date:
1959
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

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

    210/284 (page 190)
    The table which is headed “ Other Matters ” and which is printed on page 194 gives the number of bakehouses in the register of factories as 141. This number includes 2 non-mechanical bake¬ houses and 139 mechanical bakehouses. It does not include all bakehouses in the city as there are a number of small family bake¬ houses which are not registered under the Factories Act by Her Majesty’s Inspectors. The numbers of such bakehouses are rapidly falling principally because of the very intensive competition from the larger mechanical bakehouses which operate upon a wholesale basis. The fall in the number of small bakehouses, apart from the competition just mentioned, has been materially affected by the very extensive clearance and planning schemes of the City Council. Many small bakehouses demolished under such schemes are not reopened on alternative premises. There are no basement bakehouses in the city for which Certificates of Suitability under the Factories Act have been issued. The tables printed on page 193 and which set out the visits paid to factories and work carried out in factories refer only to work done under the provisions of the Factories Act which have been delegated to the City Council. They do not by any means give a complete picture of the Public Health Inspectors’ work in factories in as much as a large number of complaints are received year by year about conditions which can only be dealt with by suitable action under the Public Health Acts or Food and Drugs Act, or the Clean Air Act and other legislation. The figures of work in this connection are absorbed in the table of work done by public health inspectors which is set out on page 209. As an example of this work, inspectors in the Factories Section paid 87 visits during the year to the larger food preparation factories in the city, that is to bake¬ houses, pickle factories, confectionery factories, etc., and dealt with 122 deficiencies under the provisions of the Food Hygiene Regula¬ tions, 1955, as set out on page 155. Complaints are received from time to time about nuisances caused by various manufacturing and trade processes in the city. For example, complaints have been received of nuisance from dust emissions from dust extraction plants, from smells which originated from spray painting booths, and from fly infestations. All these complaints were dealt with by informal or statutory action under the provisions of the Public Health Act, 1936. A particular complaint,