Agenda item

To consider the report of the Assistant Director Environment. 

The Assistant Director Environment updated Members on the Council’s duties and activities relating to local air quality management, and part of that duty was to monitor local air quality, and formulate an Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP) as placed upon the Council by Part IV of the Environment Act 1985.  He also referred to the submission of an Annual Status report to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) which detailed the Council’s actions and progress in achieving reductions.  He would forward the detail to Members of the Scrutiny Committee.  One of the other main duties was for the City Council to produce an Air Quality Action Plan to identify measures that would work towards resolving the exceedances of the air quality objectives within the Air Quality Management Area. A Steering Group, set up to cover the Greater Exeter District and partner organisations had been set up to help produce the new Action Plan from 2016, met in June.

The Assistant Director Environment responded to a Member’s enquiry on the involvement of local residents in relation to the work on community engagement, and he would ask the Senior Environmental Technical Officer, who was leading on this to update the Member. 

A Member questioned why the emission data for the Energy from Waste Plant was not included in the report and further, that such emission data should be published by the plant operator for citizens to view. The Assistant Director Environment explained that the EfW Plant had no significant contribution to make in terms of air pollution when compared to traffic generated emissions, the plant having sophisticated emission control measures in place and were ahead of the field in terms of their continuous sampling of emissions through an AMESA system.  In response to the question of the publication of emission data, it was agreed that the Chair of Scrutiny Place would write to the Plant operator and Devon County Council to seek the publication of emission monitoring data, including that from the AMESA system.

He also responded to a Member’s comment on recent reports in the national press of the growing impact on human health caused by rising air and traffic pollution levels. In response to a comment about the suitability of current air monitoring equipment, he confirmed that if the PM10 measure was exceeded, that Defra would most likely require us to have more modern measuring equipment.  A Member enquired if there was a variety of locations for measuring pollution; the Assistant Director Environment confirmed that a number of the traffic hotspots were targeted as well as the main arterial routes.

Councillor Denham, Portfolio Holder Economy and Culture referred to future analysis within the Exeter City Futures initiative which, would inform future behaviour and planning. The Assistant Director Environment referred to the multi-lateral action proposed by Exeter City Futures to look at ways to encourage smarter ways of travel.

The Portfolio Holder for Communities and Neighbourhoods wished to thank the Assistant Director Environment and his team for the informative report. 

Place Scrutiny Committee supported the following:-

(1)     most recent measurements of air quality data and actions to reduce traffic emissions;

(2)     development of an updated Air Quality Action Plan covering the Greater Exeter area to fulfil air quality objectives, to reduce health effects of poor air quality and to inform the development control process;

(3)     wider community engagement in air quality matters; and

(4)     acknowledged that alteration or expansion of the current monitoring network might be required in future, particularly to include measurements of PM_2.5 or a proxy substance.