Alarm At Shortage Of Lavatory Pans

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31005, 10 March 1966, Page 7

Alarm At Shortage Of Lavatory Pans

(New Zealand Press Association)

TIMARU, March 8.

Alarm that the Government should permit the existing shortage of sanitary earthenware to continue was expressed today by the New Zealand Society of Master Plumbers.

At its annual conference in Timaru it instructed its executive to make urgent representations to the Minister of industries and Commerce (Mr Marshall) to end the situation.

The conference expressed the view that if a disaster affecting property occurred the national health could be endangered because of the shortage of lavatory pans and basins.

To this end it instructed its Gisborne delegate to make an urgent inquiry on the situation in that city following the recent earthquake. The opinion was given that if water closets in the city were damaged their replacement would be impossible because of the present shortage. The conference was told by Mr W Wadey (Wanganui) that a recent survey showed there was not one P-trap pan (water closet) available in Wanganui. The same situation existed throughout the Waikato.

Mr T. Timmins (Auckland) said that just before Christmas a large number of new buildings and houses in the Auckland area could not be occupied because of the inability of plumbers to supply P-trap pans. He said 250 members of the Auckland Master Plumbers’ Association were asked in a snap survey carried out be-

fore the start of the annual conference to state their shortages in sanitary earthenware. The 20 per cent who replied stated they needed a total of 248 lavatory pans for new buildings.