Asked by: Laura Sandys (Conservative - South Thanet)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to which local authorities penalties have been issued for breaches of the Clean Air Act 1993 since May 2010.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
The Clean Air Act includes fines for various offences to be enforced by local authorities through the magistrate courts. It does not provide for enforcement on local authorities. As the regulators, records of these should be held by local authorities. There is no requirement in the Act for local authorities to notify Defra of fines levied. Therefore, the department does not hold data for offences recorded as issued by local authorities for companies or private individuals.
Asked by: Laura Sandys (Conservative - South Thanet)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how and to whom the pollution alert on ozone in Eastern England was distributed on 18 July 2014.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
Defra issued an air pollution alert to the public on 18 July this year due to levels of ozone measured at Sibton (189µgm3) and St Osyth (185µgm3) in Eastern England. The alert was issued when hourly measurements exceeded the ozone public information threshold of 180 µg/m3 (micrograms per metre cubed) as defined in the Air Quality Directive 2008/50/EC.
The alert was issued on Defra’s UK_Air website at:
http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/latest/alerts, and air quality Twitter feed @defraUKAir, giving details of the locations and measurements, as well as relevant health advice. Members of the public can also receive air quality information such as alerts by signing up to email bulletins at http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/subscribe.
Defra works closely with Public Health England to ensure information and health advice is provided to the public when pollution levels are elevated.
Asked by: Laura Sandys (Conservative - South Thanet)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which smoke control areas are currently designated in England and Wales.
Answered by Dan Rogerson
The power to designate smoke control areas under Part 3 of the Clean Air Act 1993 lies with local authorities as the regulators. Under the Act local authorities are required to publish details of the areas created in the London Gazette and their local newspapers prior to creating the associated smoke control orders. Therefore, the definitive lists of designated areas are held by individual local authorities.