Title of Example

  Improvement of improper area delimitations by co-operative Groups

Example

   

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.


Last Updated


 

13th January 2005

Back