Local Air Quality Management & Screening Assessment 2009

Executive Summary

Part IV of the Environment Act 1995 places a statutory duty on local authorities to review and assess the air quality within their area and take account of Government Guidance when undertaking such work.

The Updating and Screening Assessment (USA) provides an update with respect to air quality issues within the District. There have been a number of changes since the last (third) round of review and assessments which have been taken into account in this assessment; including revised Local Air Quality Management (LAQM) Guidance, modelled background concentration maps, updated NO_X:NO₂ conversion calculator, updated future year calculation tools and updates on specific sources (rail, poultry farms, biomass). The USA has included consideration of new monitoring data and emissions sources, in addition to any significant changes to existing emission sources identified in the previous rounds. The USA considers the seven priority health based air quality objectives as laid down in Regulations and assesses the likelihood that the air quality objectives will be met by their target dates. If the air quality objectives are unlikely to be met, a detailed assessment will be required.

Having considered each emission source and presented evidence to support the assessment of each, it is concluded that the air quality objectives for benzene, 1, 3-butadiene, carbon monoxide, lead and sulphur dioxide will be met. There is no requirement to undertake a detailed assessment for these pollutants. However, there are exceedences of the annual mean nitrogen dioxide objective identified through monitoring data at High Street, St Lawrence. The recommendations of the Detailed Assessment 2008 to consider declaration of an Air Quality Management Area at High Street, St Lawrence should therefore be taken forward, as the USA confirms exceedences of the nitrogen dioxide annual mean objective in this area. In addition, monitoring of PM₁₀ at the Boundary Road roadside monitoring site has indicated a significant increase in the number of exceedences of the 24-hour mean objective in 2008. It is therefore recommended that a detailed assessment of PM₁₀ be undertaken for the Boundary Road, Ramsgate area.

Summary Table

Next: Introduction

• Executive Summary
• Introduction
• Updating and Screening Assessment Methodology
• New Monitoring Data
• Road Traffic Sources
• Other Transport Sources
• Industrial Sources
• Commercial and Domestic Sources
• Fugitive or Uncontrolled Sources
• Conclusions and Proposed Actions
• References
• Appendix 1 - Traffic data
• Appendix 2 - Bias Adjustment Factor Calculations
• Appendix 3 - Nitrogen dioxide diffusion tube results 2008
• Appendix 4 - DMRB Assessment Inputs
• Appendix 5 - DMRB Assessment Results
• Appendix 6 - List of Industrial Processes

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airquality@thanet.gov.uk 

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