Havant Borough Council has a well established
environmental monitoring programme carried out by the Environmental
Health and Housing Service. For example, regular checks are made on
the bacteriological quality of sea water at 13 points around the
shores of the Borough. In addition, the Service monitors air
pollution and radiation levels in and around the District.
The Environmental Health Department monitors
background radiation levels in the environment and has been an
active member of the Southern England Radiation Monitoring
Programme since August 1987.
The reason that the Council became involved was to ensure
that we are aware of the natural radiation levels that exist in the
Borough and therefore can be informed of any changes in them. With
the possibility of nuclear accidents globally, we are in a position
to rapidly know if such an incident has an impact upon the South of
England.
A wide range of samples are continually taken covering the marine,
estuarine and terrestrial environment together with a variety of
locally produced food stuffs such as milk which are analysed by
Southampton University. The analysis has shown that the levels are
very low and are well within expected natural variations in the
environment.
It is notable that there has been a slow and steady decline in
the levels in the marine samples since the closedown of the AEA
Winfrith reactor in Dorset.
Throughout the year, Environmental Health and Housing Pollution
Officers monitor and analyse air quality in the Borough. The air
quality in the Borough is very good and any air pollutants found
are generally transport related as we have two major road systems
going through the Borough.
For many years smoke and sulphur dioxide have been monitored
in the Borough, for the latest results please contact us at (023)
9244 6662/3 or alternatively you can
e-mail us. Although we do
not have recent results from N0x monitoring at this time, we will
shortly be resuming our monitoring programme for Nitrous Oxides in
the Town Centre of Havant.
As with all local governments Havant has been working hard to
ensure that air quality levels have been kept to a high standard.
At present the Environmental Health staff have been gathering data
for the Government's National Strategy for Air Quality. We are
involved in Stage 3 of the assessment process which means we have
been very busy collecting data on traffic flows, traffic speeds,
industrial processes and their emissions as well as taking account
of any cross boundary sources of air pollution that may affect the
Borough's air quality.
It is clear from the monitoring and analysis undertaken in the
Borough that we generally have excellent air quality and we are
continuing to work hard to ensure that pollution levels are
low.