On the alert for ozone pollution
Wealden is to get its first Ozone Monitoring Station as part of an international initiative to provide air quality warnings.
When the station is up and running it will be able to provide early warnings to hospitals, surgeries and the local Primary Care Trusts. This is particularly important when air quality deteriorates to the extent that it may cause problems for asthma sufferers and people with other respiratory conditions.
“When it comers to air pollution, there are no national boundaries,” points out Wealden’s Pollution Team Leader Nigel Taylor. He is also the chairman of the Sussex Air Quality Steering Group (SAQSG) which is playing a leading part it this Anglo-French project. “Our stations will be part of a cross Channel project, known as AMRO, Air Rives Manche Ozone, which, by linking in to monitoring equipment across northern France, will give advance warnings of air quality deterioration linked to weather conditions.”
“Ozone has become a significant cross border pollutant for southern England and northern France,” he said. “Periods of prolonged summer sunshine can suck in huge masses of air which have already travelled over large parts of Europe. It can result in high pollution concentrations over rural areas. This is why the project is particularly relevant to rural areas of southern England like Wealden.”
The 2003 summer heat-wave and resulting incidents of high ozone pollution in France and the south east of England showed how far-reaching air pollution could be for the health of sensitive populations.
Some 14 new ozone measurement devices will be deployed across northern France and East and West Sussex as part of the ARMO project. The air quality monitoring stations are being paid for through £220,000 from the European Union Interreg fund which promotes cross-border projects.
The station will be located in Isfield, with the support of Isfield Parish Council, at its recreation ground. This site represents an excellent location to assess exposure to ozone in rural locations in Sussex.
Wealden’s station is expected to be fully automatic. Its ozone readings will be supplemented with information from northern France to enable daily predictions about ozone levels. This information can then be sent by the internet to vulnerable groups.
Membership of the SAQSG includes all local authorities in East and West Sussex, the Primary Care Trusts, the Environment Agency and Brighton University. They are working on the AMRO project with the French departments of Picardie and Normandie and the Environmental Research Group and the National Society for Clean Air.
