AQMRC response to Defra Further Assessment consultation

As Defra's invited consultation on the repeal of Further Assessments in the Environment Act draws to a close today, we publish our response below:

CONSULTATION ON REPEAL OF 'FURTHER ASSESSMENT' PROVISION IN THE ENVIRONMENT ACT 1995

1.    Do you agree that Sections 84(1) of the Environment Act 1995 requiring the preparation of a Further Assessment following the declaration of an AQMA and Section 84(2)(a), which requires a report of the results of that Assessment to be prepared, should be repealed?

 

2.    Do you agree with the estimate of costs and benefits outlined above? Are there other costs and benefits that should be taken into account?

 

Thank you for your invitation to respond to the above consultation questions. Our responses are presented below: 

1.    The Air Quality Management Resource Centre at the University of the West of England (herein AQMRC, UWE) has many years of experience working directly with and for local government in assisting them with their statutory Local Air Quality Management (LAQM) duties, appraising Review and Assessment reports, including Further Assessments, and also in disseminating Continuing Professional Development training on LAQM to local authorities and environmental consultancies. AQMRC has been involved in the development of LAQM since its inception and has been central to the development of statutory and non-statutory guidance. AQMRC is therefore fully versed on the role of Further Assessments in LAQM and these opinions are based on direct experience and on those experiences recounted by local authorities with whom we have worked. AQMRC is also currently assisting the European Commission with the review of the Air Quality Directive and so is well-placed to recognise the importance of LAQM to national air quality policy in achieving the EU Limit Values.

With that in mind, AQMRC is firmly of the opinion that the requirement for local authorities to prepare a Further Assessment, as prescribed in the Environment Act 1995, should be retained, and not repealed. The reasons behind this standpoint are explained below:

·         Further Assessments are the only Review and Assessment report explicitly required under statute. It is our experience that air quality fails to receive the political recognition that successful implementation of policy requires, particularly in comparison with other local policies that prioritise economic development over public health. The removal of the only statutory report would therefore only serve to further demote the political weight attributed to air quality management.

·         The resource pressures on local authorities’ Environmental Health departments are recognisably high. However, this supports the need to retain the statutory nature of Further Assessments in order to ensure that air quality is not ignored.

·         Currently statutory guidance on the preparation of Detailed Assessments and Action Plans does not require sufficient further analysis (as provided by the Further Assessment) to ensure a high quality, scientifically-based Action Plan. Specifically this relates to the requirement for source apportionment, which tailors and focuses the action plan on targeting those sources that are the main contributors to poor air quality at a local level, thereby ensuring the most effective use of limited resources.

·         While a clear, scientific basis is required to determine the need for an Air Quality Management Area (AQMA), it would not be an efficient use of local authority resources to include the requirement for source apportionment at the Detailed Assessment stage in the event that appraisal of the Detailed Assessment showed there was no need to declare an AQMA.

·         Furthermore, until the AQMA is declared, many local authorities are unable to target significant resources at air quality management.

·         Neither would the Action Plan be a suitable place to include this scientific basis for an AQMA, given that the Action Plan needs to be management and action-focused document.

·         If the requirement for a Further Assessment was repealed there would be little or no reduction in burden on local authorities as the essential components, i.e. the source apportionment, calculation of emissions reduction and date when compliance would be achieved, would still need to be undertaken in order to inform the Action Plan.

·         A number of local authorities have revoked AQMAs on the basis of findings within the Further Assessment; without this step these local authorities would have continued to expend resources on creating and implementing an Action Plan.

·         Further Assessments provide a clear, scientific statement of the local air quality situation, which is accessible to those with a professional or public interest.

·         Given the potential for LAQM and local Action Plans to assist Defra in achieving the EU Limit Values, it would be short-sighted to reduce the scientific basis for AQMAs and Action Plans.

2.    The costs and benefits outlined in the consultation document are questionable or potentially misleading.

·         The basis of the cost of producing a Further Assessment (£4,919), and the extrapolation to all local authorities of £245,950, is not referenced to any peer-reviewed literature that explains the methodology and the assumptions implicit in the calculation.

·         Furthermore, the following statement in the Review of Local Air Quality Management, referenced in the consultation document, states that: “…any savings achieved from [Further Assessment] abolition would be very modest, it is a statutory requirement, and the change would not be worth pursuing unless there were other, more substantial, reasons for revisiting Part IV of the Environment Act.” Is it the intention to revisit all of Part IV of the Act? If not, can we be sure the cost of revisiting one section is commensurate with the estimated saving of local authority resource?

·         We challenge the basis of the statement made in para. 8 of the consultation document: “…given that there appears to be general agreement that the requirements for Further Assessments are redundant…”. This assertion is not referenced to any literature and we suggest that this can be construed as a leading question in an open consultation document.

·         The benefits of a Further Assessment are clear and have been identified above. These substantially outweigh the very modest and questionable benefits proposed in the consultation document as grounds for repealing the statutory basis for a Further Assessment.