Defra Review of Local Air Quality Management (England) –
regulatory and guidance changes.
IAQM consultation response
This document sets out the response prepared by the IAQM to the consultation on Defra’s
current review of Local Air Quality Management in England. The Institute’s answers to the
consultation questions are detailed below.
1. Does the draft statutory instrument achieve its stated purpose of removing the
four pollutant objectives for LA reporting purposes?
This straightforward aim is achieved, although the IAQM would prefer to see to the
statutory instrument include a formal objective for PM2.5. We believe this would enhance
its status as a regulated pollutant and encourage action to reduce concentrations of a
pollutant recognised as having health effects for any level of exposure. For local
authorities to justify action and expenditure to address PM2.5, a stronger basis is needed
than the statement “any action to reduce it would be beneficial”.
2. Do you have any final comments regarding the decision to remove the four
pollutants and in particular on the assessment of costs and benefits?
No, this decision is not contentious and we have no further comment to make.
3. Do you have any evidence on the cost and benefits of our proposals under Part 2
to help us finalise the preferred options and develop the detailed guidance for final
consultation in 2015?
The Institute does not have any evidence as such, although we are strongly of the
opinion that this non-regulatory component must give local authorities the authority and
means to diagnose air quality problems and to implement measures that will improve air
quality, as well as the power to involve other organisations, such as highways
authorities, as necessary. At present, it is very difficult to see how the proposals
achieve this aim, since the revised guidance has not yet been published and it is not
possible to judge what will be required of local authorities. Simplification of associated
guidance could lead to less consistency in assessments, reducing the ability of decision
makers to evaluate solutions effectively. Our recollection is that when the current
guidance was issued for consultation a common local authority response was that they
needed more rather than less prescriptive guidance. At a time when resources for local
authorities are shrinking, it is crucial that the key components of local air quality
management remain a statutory responsibility.
The streamlined reporting, to require an annual report and remove the need for the previous
individual reports, is supported by the IAQM, provided that the core requirements to review
and to assess air quality remain as they are. The IAQM is not in favour of reducing
expectations on the extent to which local authorities measure air quality and allocate
resources to improving air quality. The emphasis on action plans is a useful one, but there
are (as yet) no visible means of ensuring that resources will be allocated to this activity. The
assumptions underpinning the Impact Assessment suggest that Defra expects many of the
current useful activities undertaken as part of lAQM to cease, which would result in fewer
actions and would prolong the public health impacts from air pollution. For example, it is
essential that monitoring of NO2 and particulate matter concentrations by local authorities is
continued as part of the process of air quality management. We would hope that the
guidance will explicitly make this a requirement in order to diagnose potential problems. We
wish to see local authorities diagnose problems and develop plans to improve air quality.
These activities are complementary and not mutually exclusive, not least as the
effectiveness of the plans in achieving their aims following implementation needs to be
evaluated by appropriate local scale monitoring.
The cost benefit analysis also excludes any cost to business of the proposals, which does
not seem correct. Whilst not an aim of LAQM, the availability of good quality long term
monitoring data is very valuable to developers. These data are valuable for the verification
of air quality models used as part of the air quality assessment for planning applications.
Without these data being available, developers may have to commission their own
monitoring surveys, which is a cost in its own right. More importantly, however, is the cost of
the time delay that could be introduced into the development process by the need to monitor
for extended periods of time in order to obtain a valid dataset. This is inconsistent with
Government intentions to speed up decision making processes in the planning system. The
idea that the Public Health Outcomes Framework is a useful means of encouraging local
authorities to take action on air pollution as it affects human health is a good one, but needs
to be supported by a more forceful means of ensuring that activity will actually take place to
meet this important objective. The IAQM does not believe that there is sufficient regulation
or guidance to enable this to happen, as presently proposed.
In summary, the IAQM cannot object to much of what is proposed by Defra, but we are
concerned that there is an absence of regulation or guidance to enable local authorities to
give sufficient priority to improving air quality and to allocate scarce resources accordingly.
The major feature of this consultation document is what it does not include, rather than what
is proposed. Specifically, the content of any revised guidance is required to form a more
complete view of the proposed changes.
Contact
IAQM, c/o Institution of Environmental Sciences
34 Grosvenor Gardens, London, SW1W 0DH
T: +44 (0)20 7730 5516
E: [email protected]