Wisbech air quality management areas revoked
Councillors have agreed to revoke two air quality management areas in Wisbech, but have insisted the impact of the new incinerator will still be monitored.
Fenland District Council said it is required to revoke the air quality management areas that were put in place in 2005 and 2006 to monitor the risk of pollution from a coal fire boiler at a factory in Lynn Road.
The coal fire boiler was decommissioned in 2009.
A report presented to the district council’s cabinet this week (March 24) said guidance states that an air quality management area must be revoked after the pollution risk has not been present for five years.
The report added that since 2018 the Department of Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) had advised that the two air quality management areas put in place to monitor the former coal fire boiler needed to be revoked.
It said a further letter was sent to the district council in January instructing that this work now needed to be done.
The district council said the covid pandemic and the application for the MVV Medworth development delayed its work to remove the two air quality management areas.
The report said: “[The delay was] partly due to resource limitations, but in particular the local, and council, concerns about potential pollution levels from the [energy from waste] plant.”
Public feedback showed there was concern in Wisbech about lifting the two air quality management areas in light of the planned incinerator.
One person said: “Can we be assured that the incinerator and the increased traffic it will bring will be strictly monitored whilst construction and thereafter, as it will be a major pollutant.”
The report said the incinerator operators had to carry out monitoring as agreed within an air quality monitoring strategy and said the district council would be reviewing that data regularly and “requiring the most up to date technology be used for this monitoring”.
Councillor Susan Wallwork, portfolio holder for community, health, environmental health, CCTV, community safety and military covenant, said there are already “a whole host of monitoring processes going on”.
She said there are processes in place for the incinerator and stressed the two air quality management zones due to be revoked are a separate issue.
Councillor Chris Boden, leader of the district council, said he understood how some people in Wisbech may feel about the removal of the air quality management areas, but said the authority had to “follow the law” and lift them as required by Defra.
