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prepared, should be repealed?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repealed.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.
