Town's coal fire boiler air quality zones lifted

Two air quality management areas in a town are to be revoked by a council, years after being told to do so by the government.

Fenland District Council put them in place in 2005 and 2006 to monitor the risk of pollution from a now decommissioned coal fire boiler in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.

The Department for Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) first instructed the council to revoke them in 2018, following up again in January.

A resident raised concerns about their removal after the approval of a controversial incinerator in the town. The council's cabinet heard that was a separate issue and the incinerator operators would have to carry out monitoring.

A report presented to the cabinet said air quality management areas have to be revoked after the pollution risk had not been present for five years.

The coal fire boiler, at a factory in Lynn Road, had been decommissioned in 2009, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The zones, for monitoring particulates and sulphur dioxide, covered a residential area around Lynn Road.

The Covid-19 pandemic and "in particular the local - and council - concerns about potential pollution levels from the [energy from waste] plant" delayed its work to remove the zones, the report said.

Work has begun on the £300m plant, which recovers energy in the form of electricity and steam from non-recyclable household, commercial and industrial waste each year, according to applicant MVV Environment.

The cabinet meeting heard public feedback asking if "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".

Susan Wallwork, portfolio holder for community, health and environmental health, said the air quality management zones due to be revoked were a separate issue from the incinerator.

Its operators had to carry out monitoring as agreed within an air quality monitoring strategy and the council would be reviewing that data regularly and "requiring the most up to date technology be used for this monitoring", the meeting heard.

Chris Boden, leader of the Conservative-controlled council, said he understood how some people in Wisbech may feel about the removal of the air quality management areas, but the authority had to "follow the law" and lift them, as required by Defra.

Follow Cambridgeshire news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.