Transcript

Transcript

is an individual cabinet member decision-making session, planning and climate change, environmental services, and sustainability, with myself as the portfolio holder for the environment and climate change, and Councillor Caroline James as the portfolio holder for planning. First of all, do we have any declarations of interest? Nope, none from me, none from Caroline. So the only item for the agenda is item number two, is the draft 2024 annual status report. So this is to look at the air quality action plan, to update that with a requirement that we are, we have to submit to DEFRA, as I understand it, every year an updated annual status report. But I'll hand over to Andrew, who's going to take us through some of those points.

• Thank you very much. My name's Andrew Martin, I'm the Environment Health and Licensing Manager here at Elmbridge Borough Council. Basically, the purpose of today is for me to kind of introduce the air status report. The, or ASR as known, air quality has a wide range of adverse health impacts and affects many thousands of people in the UK. The air, the local air quality action plan, the AQAP, is required under part four of the Environment Act, where local authorities have declared one or more air quality management areas within their borough. Six have been declared within Elmbridge. Each year the council is required to submit an annual status report to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, DEFRA, reporting the air quality monitoring within the AQMAs for the previous year, in addition to updating the actions to improve air quality contained within the borough's 2021 to 2026 air quality action plan. The ASR report is designed to provide a summary for those living and working within the borough about the state of air quality in the area. It also provides progress on the actions that the councils and others, including the public, are taking or could take to improve air quality. The document before you has been prepared by specialist air quality consultant Stantec and officers of the pollution team. The document reports back on the 2023 period for air quality. DEFRA provides a very tight timeframe and sets out the format for responses at the end of March 2024, and the submission date for the 2024 ASR being the 28th of June, 2024. The template includes a section entitled Local Responsibilities and Commitment, and this seeks greater transparency on members and officer responsibilities and commitments to reporting and improving air quality. In view of this, and going forward, the ASRs will be approved by the portfolio holders at ICMDM. Previously, the approach taken by Elmbridge has been praised by DEFRA, and again this year, we have sought to deliver in accordance with their requirements. The council's responses will be submitted to DEFRA on the 26th of June, 2024, and will include the caveat that the response is subject to a nine-working-day call-in period. Following the end of the call-in period, the ASR will be published on the council's website. The request, therefore, today is for the cabinet member for planning and environmental health, and the cabinet member for climate change, environmental services, and sustainability to A, consider the draft 2024 ASR at Appendix A, and B, approve the draft ASR for submission to DEFRA. Thank you very much indeed.
• Thank you very much. Just a question from me then. I think we now realize that particulates are as damaging as nitrogen dioxide, whereas it used to be the big focus was on monitoring and trying to tackle nitrogen dioxide. I know that I think there was a sill bid to buy a portable monitor for particulates. Did we get that, and has that been installed?
• Yes, it has. It sits within Isha High Street on the corner, so that has been monitoring since kind of very early April. So that is monitoring particulates. So yes, the sill bid was successful. It's in place, and the results are live on our website, available for all to see.
• All right, lovely, good, thank you very much. And presumably then, that'll stay in that particular position for a few months, and then we've got the option of moving it around as we see fit.
• No, this will be set in a permanent location. The reason being was that was selected by the air quality consultants as kind of a worst-case scenario. So it made sense to have it located in that position in Isha High Street. So it's a substantial piece of kit, and to get power to it has been a considerable piece of work. So it's not something you could just pick up, move about. It's not battery operated. It's kind of mains powered.
• Good, thank you very much. No, I think it's an important report. It shows everybody, I think, how serious air quality is, and how damaging poor air quality is. You know, when you look at the UK, the number of people, the mortality burden, as it's called, in the background papers, it's amazing how many people are significantly affected by poor air quality. And it's, again, the realization over the last few years is it's not just forming problems with sort of lung cancer, or lung problems, bronchial problems. It's actually, it can affect the nervous system. It may well be responsible for early onsets, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, all sorts of other diseases related to the nervous system. So it is a tremendously important topic to get on top of. I suppose, unfortunately, it's linked to vehicle emissions as much as anything else. And we are not the authority that can tackle vehicle emissions. That's the province of Surrey County Council. But I know that, you know, looking at the papers, we're working very closely with them to try and bring in measures to reduce air pollution. So thank you very much for a very detailed and comprehensive report.
• Thank you, I agree. The report is very good. And I know you've taken us through the background over this last few weeks. So I am happy with your recommendation and this portfolio will do for planning. So I'm happy to proceed with the recommendations, both A and B.
• Do you need to read out the recommendations? No, no, absolutely, yes. I'm very happy with recommendation A and recommendation B. So excellent, thank you very much for all your work.
• Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO]