West Lindsey's Review and Assessment of local Air Quality

Part IV of the Environment Act, 1995, places a statutory duty on local authorities to periodically review and assess the air quality within their area. Starting in 1998, West Lindsey District Council undertook to carry out a reviews and assessments of air quality, including Stage 1 and Stage 2 reports, which concluded that it was not necessary to declare any Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs).

The first phase of the Second Round, the Updating, and Screening Assessment (USA) was completed in October 2003 and this provided an update with respect to air quality issues within West Lindsey District Council’s area. Since 2003, the USA concluded that no Detailed Assessment was required within the District.

Since 2001, a continuous monitoring station has been installed at a background site at Gainsborough Cemetery as part of the EDF (Energy de France) programmed to monitor emissions from the power stations in the Trent Valley.
This is currently monitoring real-time concentrations of Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) and Sulphur Dioxide (SO2).

Starting in 2004, NO2 diffusion tube sites were sited at locations to provide the following:

• a triplicate co-location study with a continuous analyser to provide a local bias adjustment factor for diffusion tubes
• baseline data at 3 proposed large-scale developments likely to impact on air quality
• confirmation of compliance with the NO2 annual mean objective at the busy Trent Bridge Junction predicted in the 2nd round USA (2003) to be marginally below the Objective; urban background monitoring data

Since 2009, Bureau Veritas has been commissioned by West Lindsey District Council to undertake Annual Progress Reports, copies of which can be found below. Air quality management (admin and placement/collection) is a function of the Environmental Protection team.