Since 1997, all local authorities in the UK have been carrying out a review and assessment of air quality in their area. The aim of the review is to make sure that the national air quality objectives will be achieved. If a local authority finds any place where the objectives are unlikely to be achieved it must declare an Air Quality Management Area there.
Dudley Council originally declared two air quality management areas in Brierley Hill and Sedgley as the review and assessment process indicated that both areas failed to meet the 2005 nitrogen dioxide objective. During the third round of Review and Assessment, further exceedances of the NO2 objective were also identified in:
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Windmill Hill (Cradley)
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Wordsley High Street
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Pensnett High Street
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Quarry Bank High Street
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Lye (Pedmore Road/High Street)
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Netherton (Halesowen Road)
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Lower Gornal (Himley Road)
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Halesowen (Stourbridge Road).
An additional exceedance was also detected just outside the Sedgley AQMA. Further action was therefore required to extend the Sedgley AQMA boundary and to declare one or more new AQMA(s) which include the additional areas identified above.
Dudley Council evaluated a number of possible options for addressing these actions and proposed that the existing AQMAs were consolidated into one new AQMA which covers the whole of Dudley Borough. Consultation regarding these proposals, which can also be downloaded from the Related Documents section, took place between February and June 2007. No major objections to these proposals were received and Dudley Council's Cabinet ratified the decision to declare the whole borough as an AQMA in September 2007. The Dudley Borough AQMA order was sealed in December 2007 and revoked the earlier orders for Brierley Hill and Sedgely.
A Borough wide action plan has now been prepared and was adopted in September 2011.