Have your say on our draft Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP) for Buckinghamshire

Overview

We want your views on our draft Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP) for Buckinghamshire.

We have a legal responsibility as a council to monitor and report on air quality in our region. In areas where the objectives are not met, Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) are declared to improve air quality.

There are currently nine Air Quality Management Areas in Buckinghamshire.

Where AQMAs are declared, we have to produce an Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP). The aim of this is to reduce concentrations within those AQMAs to below the government’s objectives.

You can view our map to see the AQMAs and monitoring sites within our area.

The nine AQMAs are:

Revoking Air Quality Management Areas

Guidance published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) states: "There should not be any declared AQMAs for which compliance with the relevant objective has been achieved for a consecutive five-year period." (Paragraph 3.57)

Monitoring data in four of our AQMAs has consistently been below the annual mean objective for nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) for five years or more. Also, predictions of future trends in NO₂ show that the probability of the objectives being exceeded again is highly unlikely.  Therefore, we are revoking the following AQMAs:

• Tring Road AQMA
• Chesham AQMA
• South Bucks AQMA
• AQMA No. 1 (M40)

Although these AQMAs are being revoked, we will not stop monitoring air pollution in these areas. As part of the measures in our Climate Change and Air Quality Strategy, we will continue to work to improve air quality across Buckinghamshire, even in the absence of an AQMA.

To make sure we are on course to further improve air quality across the Council area, we needed to review and consolidate the AQAPs previously developed by the legacy district councils into a single Plan for Buckinghamshire.

Draft Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP)

Our draft Plan sets out the measures we intend to take to help address areas of poor air quality and to safeguard improvements to air quality in Buckinghamshire. It outlines the action we will take between 2024 and 2030 or until the NO₂ air quality objective is achieved throughout Buckinghamshire.

Air pollution cannot be dealt with by Buckinghamshire Council alone. Each person visiting, living, working, or studying in Buckinghamshire can help to reduce emissions and the risk of exposure to pollutants.

We want to hear views on our draft Air Quality Action Plan from people living, studying and/or working in Buckinghamshire, and anyone who visits the area.

Related documents

Before you respond to this activity, please have a look at the following document:

• Draft Air Quality Action Plan for Buckinghamshire (PDF 3.1MB)

How to have your say

You can tell us your views in one of the following ways:

• complete the online survey using the link at the end of the page
• complete, and return, a printed version of the survey (PDF 0.25MB)

If you have any questions about this activity, please email us at environmentalhealth@buckinghamshire.gov.uk.

Please tell us your views by 11:59pm on Monday 30 September 2024.

What happens next

Consultation feedback will be used to:

• make any necessary amendments to the action plan
• inform stakeholders, including Defra, of public opinion regarding the changes needed to improve local air quality

The Leader of Buckinghamshire Council will make a final decision on the adoption of the AQAP in December 2024.

Privacy

We will use the information you provide here only for this activity. We will store the information securely in line with data protection laws and will not share or publish any personal details. For more information about data and privacy, please see our Privacy Policy.

If you have questions about data and privacy, please email us on dataprotection@buckinghamshire.gov.uk or write to our Data Protection Officer at Buckinghamshire Council, The Gateway, Gatehouse Road, Aylesbury, HP19 8FF.