Issue - meetings

Questions on Notice

Meeting: 19/07/2023 - Council (Item 33)

To deal with any questions on notice from Members of the Council, in the order in which they have been received.

A period of up to 15 minutes is allocated for the asking and answering of questions. This may be extended at the discretion of the Chairman with the agreement of the majority of those present.

Minutes:

The Chairman explained that five Questions on Notice had been submitted for this meeting.

Question submitted by Councillor H. Rone-Clarke

"In recent years, the A38 roundabout at Morrison’s (Redditch Road) and immediate surrounding area has been subject to much development; new shops, a Costa Drive-Thru and planned improvements to the A38 mean this area will soon be unrecognisable compared to 5 years ago. Local residents along with myself are, as a result, calling for air pollution monitoring so they can be educated as to the air quality around their homes.

I’m aware that studies have been undertaken prior to development suggesting it would not have a negative impact, but given the other changes that have taken place in the area, will the leader write to Highways to request that a survey is undertaken as soon as possible?”

The Leader provided a response to the question and in doing so reported that duties around air quality sat mainly with the District Council in two tier areas, although under the new Environment Act 2021, County Councils did have a duty to work with District authorities to improve air quality where levels fell below objective standards.

The Technical Services Team at Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS) were responsible for discharging the District Council duties for monitoring Air Quality across Worcestershire. It was confirmed that they carried this out for all six partner Councils, including Bromsgrove, to address the Districts’ duties which included reporting on progress with regards to air quality to the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

Council was informed that in Bromsgrove District there were three Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) declared, as follows:

· Lickey End (Junction 1 of M42) - Bromsgrove declared in 2001.

· Redditch Road (A38) - Bromsgrove declared in 2010.

· Worcester Road - Bromsgrove declared in 2011.

It was stated that details of the AQMAs outlined above, could be found on the WRS website under Air Quality.

It was further clarified that the area around Morrisons/A38 roundabout, specifically referred to in the question was near to the Redditch Road AQMA with two sensitive receptor (SR) locations (i.e. houses,) being located within the AQMA at the junction of Redditch Road and Buntsford Hill. The long-term Nitrogen Dioxide (NOx) tube monitoring locations in this AQMA showed that there had not been any exceedances of the national air quality objectives standard since 2016. In 2022 (the last full year of data), the annual average level of NOx at locations in the AQMA was 25.91 ug/m3, falling below the national objective standard of 40 ug/m3. Residential properties to the north-east of Morrisons area were set well back from the A38 and this, plus the above results, would suggest that pollutant concentrations were likely to be within the air quality objective standard at these locations.

The view of Officers was that the current monitoring network in this overall vicinity was considered sufficient at this time.

However, Members were reminded that additional monitoring equipment had been funded and that once available, would be ... view the full minutes text for item 33