Air Quality Review & Assessment
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Why do we Assess Air Quality?
Under Part IV of The Environment Act 1995, Local Authorities have a statutory obligation to review the air quality within their areas against the National Air Quality Standards for several pollutants.
How do we Assess Air Quality?
Review and Assessment provides the means for determining the likelihood of achieving the National Air Quality Standards by the relevant objective years between 2003 and 2010. It is a tiered system, the first stage of which involves the compilation of an emissions inventory i.e. a list of the potential polluting sources in the area including transport (roads, rail, air ports, shipping ports) industrial processes, power generation, domestic heating and relevant future developments. The list is then applied to various screening tools and simple modelling packages so as to highlight those sources which may contribute significantly to the levels of one or more of the National Air Quality Standard pollutants within the area. These significant sources are then subject to further more detailed analysis which can involve the use of passive and real time monitoring and or dispersion modelling.
Local Authorities are currently only required to assess against seven of the eight pollutants for which there are National Air Quality Standards. This is becasue the Government recognises that there is little Local Authorities can do themselves to control the occurance of this pollutant. Instead it is hoped that National initiatives will continue to reduce Ozone levels in the future.
Air Quality Management Area
Where it is very likely, likely or probable that one or more of the National Air Quality Standards will be exceeded in any relevant receptor location then the Local Authority must give cosidereation to the declaration of an Air Quality Mangement Area (AQMA). It is then necessary to decide on the extent of the boundary of the AQMA and then to formally designate it, via an AQMA order, within four months. Following this, an air quality improvement action plan must be developed within 18 months and 12 months of further assessment is required to enable the significant pollution contributors to be effectively targeted. The plan must then be initiated and its progress reported on annually.
How Often do we Assess Air Quality?
Local authorities are required to keep air quality under continual review and subsequently have to carry out Review and Assessments every three years up to 2010 and most likely beyond. Each round of Review and Assessment review is can take several months to years depending upon the problems encountered. It also only represents the first step in the process of Local Air Quality Management.
Round 1 Air Quality Review and Assessment
North East Lincolnshire Council completed the first round of the Review and Assessment in April 2001. The final stage report concluded that an exceedence of the annual mean standard for Nitrogen Dioxide would occur within Cleethorpe Road, in the Riby Square area in 2005. The main cause of this breach was considered to be attributable to traffic. Despite this, the affected residential properties were not inhabited at the time though other inhabited residential properties were very close.
The Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) stated that although an exceedence was likely there was no need to declare an AQMA, however they did suggest that the authority err on the side of caution and carry out real time monitoring in case an AQMA is later found to be necessary. To achieve this, the Council's mobile monitoring equipment was moved from its previous location at the Immingham Resource Centre to Riby Square and has since collected 1 years real time data between January and December 2002.
Round 2 Air Quality Review & Assessment
The second round of Review and Assessment began with the Update and Screening Assessment (USA) which commenced in February 2003. The purpose of the USA was to look at things that have changed within the area since the time of the first air quality review. Based on the findings of the USA, the Council must then decide whether a Detailed Assessment is needed.
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After completeing the report, the Council carried out a consultation excercise in which feedback was sought from various stakeholders and statutory consultees. This process resulted in the alteration of some of the original reccommendations and thus it is now necessary to read the USA report in conjunction with the Addendum compiled as part of the consultation process.
See below for a summary of the main conclusions resulting from both the assessment and consultation processes.
USA Conclusions
The real time monitoring data from the monitoring station at Riby Square confirmed a predicted breach of the 2005 annual mean National Air Quality Standard for Nitrogen Dioxide. Once more, the properties in question are currently occupied demonstrating relevant exposure. Consequently, a recommendation was made to DEFRA to declare an AQMA at or within the vicinity of certain properties on Cleethorpe Road near Riby Square.
DEFRA accepted the USA report but highlighted concerns in the modelling work carried out previously and the fact that the monitoring had been carried out in the middle of the road rather than at the façade of the relevant properties. They therefore recommended that an AQMA was not declared at this stage but that the Council should proceed to Detailed Assessment and thus carry out additional dispersion modelling and monitoring.
Detailed Assessment must be carried out, in addition to Riby Square, for a) seven other locations in North East Lincolnshire due to potential problems with vehicular derived emissions b) for emissions from shipping in Immingham and c) due to the need for additional information to screen certain industrial sources.
To enable the Council to complete the Detailed Assessment a bid was made for Government funding to enable the purchase of dispersion modelling software and monitoring equipment. This was successful and consequently the Council will be procuring one new monitoring station and dispersion modelling software.
Round 2 Detailed Assessment
Following the Update and Screening Assessment (USA), and DEFRA's comments on it, a detailed assessment for Riby Square/Cleethorpes Road was completed in April 2004.
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