Air Quality Management UK Case Study: Southampton City

1
Air Quality ManagementUK Case Study Southampton
City

• Initial Findings

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Southampton City Context

• Currently around 220,000 population, part of
  urbanised South Hampshire sub-region 970,000
  population
• Coastal location
• Major transport infrastructure- one of the UKs
  principal ports, freight and passenger traffic
• Designated growth area in SE of England
  development of up to 80,000 new homes by 2026
• Freight traffic projected to more than double in
  next 5 years, cruise terminal is expanding, major
  new retail development in city centre

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Air Quality Issues in the City

• Air quality good relative to other large cities-
  coastal location, large areas of open space,
  pedestrianised city centre.
• Trends are steady falls in some pollutants (SO2,
  carbon monoxide, lead, benzene) though levels of
  NO2 and PM10 have not fallen
• Six hot spots where national targets for air
  quality are exceeded- all Nitrogen dioxide
  resulting from transport emissions
• HGV traffic to port most significant, though not
  only, source
• Fears that air quality will deteriorate in
  context of projected traffic growth- though
  uncertainty around infrastructure investment and
  prospects of cleaner vehicles

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Air Quality Management Areas declared July 2005
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AQ Management Process

• Environment Act 1995 established the duty to
  review and assess air quality and develop Action
  Plan where targets exceeded
• National Air Quality Strategy 2000 established
  standards and objectives (policy targets)
• Local Air Quality Strategy (combined with Climate
  Change in SCC)
• 2 rounds of assessment leading to declaration
  AQMAs 2005
• AQ Action Plan- consultation document Sept 2007,
  appendix to Local Transport Plan

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AQ management actors in the process

• Professional officers Southampton City Council
  environmental health, transport and planning
• Councillors cabinet member for environment and
  full council
• Other government agencies Highways Agency,
  Environment Agency, DEFRA
• Neighbouring LAs
• Sub-regional networks (in transport,
  environmental health) and regional bodies
• Economic interests Associated British Ports
• Specialist Consultants
• Health authority
• Local media
• Local residents and business

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Initial findings governance

• Governance mode- hierarchy. AQM largely a
  bureaucratic process, with rules and procedures
  cascading down from national level
• Applies especially to Review and Assessment of AQ
  and declaration of AQMAs
• Less so to AQ Action Plan where network forms of
  governance are apparent through consultation and
  involvement of other tiers, neighbours and key
  stakeholders such as the port operator.

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Initial findings knowledge

• Expert and scientific knowledge plays key role in
  monitoring and modelling, and mapping areas of
  predicted exceedence
• Networks of scientific officers share knowledge
  of problems and responses
• Balanced by economic /market knowledge in
  declaring AQMAs- debate over spatial extent of
  AQMAs- issues of image, blight
• Responses (action plan) based on professional
  knowledge, but in context of political commitment
  to sustaining and growing the economy
• Everyday/ lay knowledge plays limited (no?) role-
  resident complaints followed up with measurement