Air Pollution

(asked on 18th November 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to help ensure that access to accurate air quality monitoring data is provided across local communities.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 26th November 2021

Defra’s UK-Air website displays near real time measurements from monitoring sites across the UK for a range of pollutants (https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk). The largest of these networks, the UK Automatic Urban and Rural Network, is comprised of 171 monitoring sites and provides data to measure compliance with the Air Quality Standards Regulations (2010). The number and location of these sites have been carefully selected to minimise uncertainty and to be representative of the whole of the UK. Data from automatic monitoring sites managed by local authorities is also available from UK-Air.

The department is currently undertaking a detailed review of data services on UK-Air, building on the recent user needs work published in June this year (http://sciencesearch.defra.gov.uk/Document.aspx?Document=15133_DefraAirQualityUserNeeds-finalreport.pdf), to maximise the benefits this high-quality monitoring information can provide our local communities and decision makers at all levels.

Through the statutory Local Air Quality Management framework, local authorities are required to assess air quality in their area and provide a summary of their assessment in an Annual Status Report. Local authorities are required to make these reports available to the public and local stakeholders through their websites.

In addition, Defra’s Air Quality Grant scheme provides funding to local authorities and supports schemes which help councils develop and implement measures to improve air quality in local communities. We have increased the funding pot available to local authorities in this year’s Air Quality Grant by £6 million. A significant proportion of this additional funding will be dedicated to projects to improve public awareness in local communities about the risks of air pollution.

Reticulating Splines