• An aerial view of High Town and the huge Thermo Works (centre) around 1920.

"The side lines of hell" was the lurid, and rather forcible, description given at the meeting of Luton Town Council on Tuesday night [April 9th, 1918] of a nuisance caused to the persons living in the neighbourhood of the Thermo Works [in York Street, High Town] by the discharge of smoke in connection with the operations carried on there.

The Town Clerk [Mr William Smith] has requested the Company to take prompt measures to minimise the nuisance, and Councillor J. Unwin said it was refreshing to know that the Company was being given a little 'wigging' because "we get up there about twice a week all the side lines of hell". Members stared aghast at the statement and then broke out into laughter.

Councillor Unwin's reply to the astonishment he caused was that, although it was plain language, the condition of things was such as to require plain language. When the wind was in their direction residents could not breathe, the dust was abominable, and if the people in the neighbourhood could get houses elsewhere they certainly would not remain where they were.

Councillor W. W. Merchant also testified that there were serious complaints of not only the smoke and fumes, but also of the noise of electric hammers.

Alderman E. Oakley described it as a very great scandal that the Company had been allowed to decimate High Town in the way they had, and said such works ought never to have been allowed to extend in that vicinity, but ought to be somewhere outside the town.

If the Corporation or any public body had wanted to extend their works and pull down rows of cottages, as Thermo had done, they would have had to provide houses for the working classes, whereas the Thermo had done it right and left. They had destroyed scored of homes, and what had not been destroyed had been made uninhabitable.

Councillor Stewart Hubbard was stated to have been responsible for bringing the nuisance to the notice of the General Purposes Committee, and he said it was something that could be remedied, but the firm probably did not care to grapple with the question until they were forced.

On a separate issue, Mr F. W. Smith wrote complaining that a request of 191 householders in the West Ward who signed a petition concerning the reopening of Gas Works Path at an early date had not been considered and attended to.

Councillor Attwood pointed out that the matter was already settled when it came before the Council. The Council did not close the path; it was closed by the military authorities under the Defence of the Realm Act, and whenever that was taken off the Council would certainly ask for the reopening.

Councillor R. F. Briggs thought the Council should take steps to see if the military authorities would not remove the embargo on the use of the path, because the probability was that the military officer who had the path closed did not know now whether if was closed or open.

At one time there was a platoon guarding there, but the necessity for that passed long ago, and his opinion was that the necessity for closing this path has also passed.

[The Luton Reporter: Tuesday, April 16th, 1918]