Asked by: Khalid Mahmood (Labour - Birmingham, Perry Barr)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if she will make it her policy to monitor air pollution levels outside schools.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The UK national monitoring network follows strict criteria for the number and location of air quality monitoring sites as set out in Annex III of the ambient air quality Directive.
These do not preclude siting monitoring outside or nearby to schools and some existing monitors are near to schools. To ensure the network meets the Directive requirements, monitoring is undertaken at a range of locations (e.g. urban background, roadside, industrial and rural locations).
Practical factors such as health and safety, access, locality to services, planning, land ownership and cost of monitoring sites are also key in siting new monitoring stations.
Many Local Authorities also conduct air quality monitoring and are free to determine their chosen approach in assessing air pollution based on local circumstances and priorities. Local Authorities are able to use monitoring methods not available to the national network due to the Directive’s requirements.
This means that they are able to design monitoring more suited to the local circumstance. However, when a new national monitoring site is required, Local Authorities will be consulted and where possible, existing sites may be shared or a new site located to meet both national and local needs. This may often mean consideration is given to siting at a local school or at a Local Authority or public building.