Bristol is a unitary
authority with historic boundaries that do not include the whole of the urban
area. Bristol is also the largest
city in the south west of England and is a transport and
distribution hub to a huge area of over 300 kilometres across. It would be
impossible to deal with local issues without local co-operation and on a
regional level wider co-operation is necessary to ensure cohesion and
uniformity.
I am therefore going to consider local
co-operation in the form of a group called CUBA, and a much wider group
covering most of this area called Bristol, Gloucestershire and Somerset, Environmental
protection committee. Neither of these groups are statutory bodies but both are
co-operative forums which allow work to progress across boundaries. Area
delimitations in the UK are based on historic
estates and geographical features and bear no resemblance to either
watersheds nor airsheds.
Regional Development Agencies have been set up
in the UK mirroring the likely
future shape of Regional Government. These statutory agencies are guided by
boards consisting of local politicians but have no impact on regional pollution
generation or control.
In order to properly model and monitor the
city as a whole and nearby commuter towns and villages we have set up a small
group of air quality experts advised by the Air Quality Management Group at
UWE. Experts from each unitary authority meet every six weeks to review
progress and coordinate actions. This group hass
‘subcontracted’ most of the monitoring, modelling and emission database
construction to Bristol City Council on a contract basis. The group has also
commissioned several cross border reports from UWE covering cross border
pollution and cross border actions that would be needed to control these
issues. Although we have not arrived at new more sensible area delimitations we
have worked around them by developing a common model, databases and monitoring
to the same standards and calibration gases. Joint bids for national resources
to aid in these cross border operations have been secured for pollution
forecasting modelling and to help resource local site operations and
calibrations. On the wider scale we co-operate on a regional basis with the Bristol, Gloucestershire and Somerset, Environmental
protection committee or BGS for short . This group of
pollution control experts from all authorities in the region organises
monitoring campaigns such as indoor NOx in air
quality management areas, heavy metals in air including Cadmium and catalytic
metals, and lead in roadside dust. The group also produces many guidance
documents across the region to ensure uniformity of approach by each council
and a common agreed response to developers and polluting companies. The
Government based Pollution Agency is also represented on this committee and
acts as a liaison between the Pollution Agency and the local government
enforcers. The BGS also commissions regional wide training in those specialist
areas often ignored by commercial training companies. On a regional basis it
can mobilise from 50 to 100 experts to undertake training that we collectively
decide is beneficial. The two key words here are ‘negotiation’ and
‘co-operation’ to ensure adequate protection is afforded to both urban areas
and to the rural and countryside authorities.
Where area delimitation doesn’t make sense,
co-operate with your neighbours in developing skills and carrying out area wide
assessments that do make sense. Regional groupings give you a wider voice and
collective muscle to secure agreements, carry out meaningful monitoring
campaigns, set standards and to organise training way
beyond that within the scope of a single authority.
Sharing and co-operating with other authorities can improve economies of scale
and help share the burden of finding the way through new legislation and ways
of working. They do not lead to loss of power but help reinforce the rules over
the whole region selected. They enable sharing of experience and hence raising
of skill capacity across the region.
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