Air quality

38. Air quality is now an issue high on the political agenda, reflecting widespread public concern about the impact of transport-generated air pollution on health. In August 1996, the Government published a Consultation Draft of its National Air Quality Strategy; a final version is due to be adopted early in 1997. In November it published for consultation a proposal¹³ to widen the scope of its Health of the Nation strategy to establish the environment as a new 'key area' and to include outdoor air quality as one of the 'environmental health areas'. In December, the Government outlined for consultation information on how aspects of the air quality strategy were to be implemented, including the approach local authorities should take in reviewing and assessing air quality and a range of possible new powers to reduce air pollution in air quality management areas.
39. The Panel welcomes the target-based approach adopted by the air quality strategy. It remains to be seen whether the necessary resources will be made available at national and local level for the objectives to be achieved by 2005. Most of the measures required to improve air quality affect transport. The Government's recent Green Paper on transport recognizes increasing concern about the impacts of transport¹⁴ on the environment and about how far present levels of traffic growth are sustainable. But the measures required to tackle the unsustainable growth in road transport, to improve public transport and to promote greener forms of transport less harmful to the environment are not yet in place. The Panel considers that stronger measures, both regulatory and fiscal, are required if air quality is to be improved.

Housing and land use planning

40. The suggestion in the Government's 1995 household projections that there could be up to 4.4 million more households in England between 1991 and 2016 has given urgency to the debate about the location of new housing and other development. The Government's Housing White Paper for England and Wales¹⁵ set the target that by 2005, half of all new homes should be built on reused sites. The Government's recent consultation paper on household growth¹⁶ notes that by 1993, 49% of new housing development in England was on previously developed land and invites views on an aspirational target of 60%. Nevertheless concern has been expressed in many quarters that without fundamental policy changes it will not be possible to maintain even current levels of use of previously used land and buildings and that much more new development will have to be located on greenfield sites.
41. Greenfield sites are generally easier and cheaper to develop than other sites. But their development imposes costs on the community as a whole in terms of increased traffic, demands for new infrastructure and degradation of the environment. Apart from loss of countryside, their development also contributes to the decline of existing urban areas. The Panel believes that complementary regulatory and fiscal measures are needed which would make it much more difficult for development to take place on greenfield sites and would encourage the use of previously used land. It considers that ways should be found to bring these wider considerations fully into the costs of development.

¹⁴Transport. The Way Forward. Cm 3234. HMSO, 1996. ISBN 0-10-132342-5.

¹⁵Our Future Homes. Opportunity, Choice, Responsibility. Cm 2901. HMSO, 1995. ISBN 0-10-129012-8.

¹⁶Household Growth: where shall we live? Cm 3471. HMSO, 1996. ISBN 0-10-134712-X.