Issue - meetings

This report will be pre-scrutinised at a meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee scheduled to take place on 16^th March 2023.  Any recommendations on this subject arising from that meeting will be published in a supplementary pack for the Executive Committee’s consideration.

The Technical Services Manager, Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS), presented the Air Quality Enhanced Monitoring Options report for the Executive Committee’s consideration.

The report outlined WRS’s air quality monitoring regime, which focused on monitoring pollutants that could impact on air quality.  WRS had submitted a bid to the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) for grant funding to support enhanced air quality monitoring.  This bid had been successful, although DEFRA required recipients of this grant funding to agree to 10 per cent match funding in order for the grant to be provided.

The grant funding would enable WRS to monitor additional particulates in the air that were not usually monitored in the Borough.  It was proposed that this funding should be used to support monitoring over a two-year period in two particular areas in the Borough. 

Members were asked to note that there were no particular areas of concern in terms of air quality in Redditch, when compared to other parts of the country.  However, Officers would be analysing the potential impact of solid fuel burning in urban areas as well as pollutants relating to agricultural work in rural parts of the Borough.  There was the possibility that, depending on the outcomes of the monitoring and the data uncovered, behaviour change might be needed.

RECOMMENDED that

following the successful outcome of the air quality grant bid to Defra, match funding totalling £2,300 be funded from Corporate Earmarked Reserves over the life of the project.