 sut amdano i gael yẹn cyfifredu 27 danau o gweithredu 17 o fynd yn affrorddiant, a'r cyfifredu Rheinyddoedd. Felly rydw ichi'n gweld i'n ystod y llunig mewn hyfryd, rydw chi'n gweld i'n meddwl i'r perfforddiant o hyd o gynnwys, oedd ymddych chi'n cyfifredu'r bydd ynw i gydol chi'n hwn i'r acadw iawn. Efallai'n blaen... nine, ten and eleven in private. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. The second item on the agenda is to hear evidence on two Scottish statutory instruments, the draft public appointments and public bodies etc. Scotland Act 2003 amendment of specified authorities order 2017 and the draft land reform Scotland act 2016 supplemental provision regulations 2017. Welcome, the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, Roseanna Cunningham, Andrew Rockstone, Solicitor and Jill Gardner, the Community Assets Action Officer for the Scottish Government. Can I ask members if they have any questions for the Cabinet Secretary? Cabinet Secretary, do you want to make any comment at the start? I don't think there's really very much to say about either of these, convener. Okay. Do you have any questions on either of these? Okay. This will be nice and easy, I suspect. We'll just move to anything for you. Emma Harper. Thank you, thank you, convener. It would be a shame to bring you here to not even ask one question, so I'm interested because we're… One of our… the specification of devolved tax, wild fisheries, order 2017, it's a… Coming to that later. Coming to that later. All right. Am I jumping the gun? Yes. It's been an early start for everyone this morning. Okay. Thank you. So any members have any questions on these? None at all. Okay, so what do we do? We just move to the motion. We just move to the next agenda item. So move to the next agenda item, which is consideration of motion S5M-07898, that the environment climate change and land reform committee recommends that the Public Appointments and Public Bodies Scotland Act 2003, amendment of specified authorities order 2017 draft, be approved. Cabinet Secretary, do you wish to move that motion? I wish to move that motion 07897 be agreed. Okay, so I put the question that motion S5M-07898, in the name of Rosanna Cymru, be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. The fourth item on our agenda today is consideration of motion S5M-07897, that the environment climate change and land reform committee recommends that the Land Reform Scotland Act 2016, supplemental provision, regulations 2017, be approved. Cabinet Secretary, do you wish to speak to and move the motion? Sorry, I thought 0897 was the one that we just did, but is it not? 0898 was the one that we did previously. Oh, did we? Right. Okay. No, I haven't got anything to add. Okay, thank you. Do members wish to speak on this motion? No. Okay. Cabinet Secretary, do you wish to wind up? No. Okay, thank you. I put the question on the motion. The question is that the motion S5M-07897, in the name of Rosanna Cymru, be approved. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. Cabinet Secretary, thank you. Do you wish to change your officials now? Yes. Did I not have to move one of those now? I don't think I formally moved. Sorry. You did move it. Did I? I've just been told. Okay. Do you wish to reiterate that you've moved the motion? It's a matter for you, convener. Do that and make sure that we've covered this. Well, which one are we on now? 07897. Thank you. Well, I moved it. Motion 07897, be approved. Are we all agreed? Yes. We are agreed. Okay. Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. Do you want a brief suspension to allow you to change? Welcome back. The fifth item of business on our agenda today is to hear evidence on the draft Scotland Act 1998, specification of devolved tax, World Fisheries Order 2017. Again, we're joined by the Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, who is accompanied on this occasion by Katie Joshy, Sositor and Simon Dryden, Marine Superintendent, Marine Scotland. Can I ask if members have any questions that they wish to ask? Emma Harper. Thank you, convener. Okay, we're in the right order now. Good morning, Cabinet Secretary and everybody. It is a bit of a tangential question just while you're here, but could the Cabinet Secretary provide an update on when the Wild Fisheries Bill is going to be taken forward? Where are we in the process? There will be—there is a place for the Wild Fisheries Bill within the lifetime of this Parliament. I don't really want to pre-empt a future programme for government. It was never intended to be a year one bill, so it isn't at the moment one that's imminent. There is a place for it and I would have expected it to be potentially round about year three, but I can't pre-empt a programme for government. A lot of the legislative programme is subject to Brexit consequentials as well, which we're carefully looking at. Okay, okay. John Scott. Welcome, Cabinet Secretary. Since this bill is about raising tax, even at this early stage, do you have any understanding or knowledge of what level or what the tax rate would be? Well, the bill is not about raising tax, the bill is about reforming fisheries management. This particular order is about the transfer of a power to raise a levy, but it's not actually about the raising of the levy itself. It simply will allow in the future a Scottish Government to do so if it felt it was appropriate. We've indicated that we do not consider that to be the case. Just now I made it clear earlier this year that I wasn't minded to introduce a rod licence or other form of levy, but this is simply the devolution of a power to do so, which will be available to a Government in the future, should it feel that that was necessary. Although that's not your intention? It is not my intention. The actual raising of a levy will not be in the bill. The bill will allow for a reformed management structure, and it would only be much further down the line if there was a failure in terms of a management, particular area management structure that the Government might have to step in, but that is not in our minds. The sixth item on our agenda today is consideration of motion S5M-07900. The Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee recommends that the Scotland Act 1998 specification of devolved tax while fisheries order 2017 draft be approved. Do you wish to speak and move the motion? I'll move the motion. Do any members wish to say anything at this stage? Members have indicated not. Cabinet Secretary, do you wish to wind up? Indeed. I put the question on the motion. The question is that motion S5M-07900, in the name of Roseanna Cunningham, be approved. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. Cabinet Secretary, thank you and your officials for your brief attendance this morning. I'm going to suspend to allow you to leave the table. Welcome back to the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. The sixth item on our agenda today is consideration of a negative instrument, the public and private water supplies miscellaneous amendment Scotland regulations 2017, SSI 2017 slash 321. Do any members have any comments to make on this? No comments. Is the committee therefore agreed that it does not wish to make any recommendations in relation to these instruments? We are agreed, are we? We are agreed. We now move to agenda item 8, which is our inquiry into air quality in Scotland. We were to be hearing evidence from two panels of stakeholders in relation to the inquiry. Unfortunately, our first evidence session, which was to be by video conference, is not going to proceed on to technical problems outwith our control. We will now move to hear evidence from what would have been the second panel of witnesses to explore air quality in Scotland. I welcome Graeme Applegate, the principal policy officer for air quality and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Craig McLaren, the director of the Royal Town Planning Institute Scotland and Stephen Thompson, head of environmental and sustainability transport Scotland. I should add that Eric Owens, who is the head of planning and sustainable development at Aberdeen City Council, was to have joined the panel. He, too, is unavailable today, this time only to transport difficulties. I welcome gentlemen. Members have a series of questions that they wish to put to you. Kicking off this morning is Mark Ruskell. Thank you, convener, and good morning everybody. We're breaking the law in Scotland. We've got dozens of areas which are breaching EU legal limits for nitrous oxide. What's your thoughts on cleaner air for Scotland as a strategy? Will it bring legal compliance before 2020? Is it fit for purpose, given the High Court ruling on the adequacy of DEFRA and Scottish Government plans that was announced earlier on this year? What do you believe needs to change, if anything, in cleaner air for Scotland in order to bring us into legal compliance? Who wishes to kick off? Graeme Applegate. I think cleaner air for Scotland is fit for purpose and it will assist in bringing us into compliance with the EU legislation. I think it needs to be remembered that CAFs are only less than two years old and as a national strategy much of the groundwork is currently being put in place to allow us to achieve those legal limits within the shortest possible time and by 2020. It's the case that this is the first time Scotland and indeed any of the devolved administrations has taken this approach in relation to air quality. I think it's the case that the strategy needs to bed in. It needs to have time to mature it. It's also the case that the existing work that's being carried out under local quality management is also moving to allow us to achieve legal compliance as well and I think the two need to be taken together that we already have this existing mechanism in place which should ensure legal compliance and CAFs as complementary but also supporting to that. So I think it is definitely fit for purpose. It may be the case that in future years it does need to be reviewed to see how progress has moved on and whether parts of the strategy do need to be changed but I would say at the moment that CEPR is fully supportive of CAFs and the work that's being undertaken and we are definitely supportive of the strategy in principle and also in implementation. Just before the other panellists answer that, as the regulator do you think we will get legal compliance by 2020 on nitrous oxide or not? It appears that we will achieve compliance in three of the non-compliant areas. So North East Scotland, Central Scotland and the Edinburgh agglomeration. Glasgow is currently having to go through the process of being remodeled based on some of the road changes that have taken place where potential non-compliances were likely but the road system has changed. So I think we will be very well on the way to legal compliance by 2020 and we may indeed be fully compliant. Three areas but what about the rest? It's only Glasgow agglomeration which is subject to remodeling so it may well be that after remodeling it does fall into compliance. Stephen Dobson. CAFs should be viewed as a live document. I certainly in my own experience the issues of air quality are moving so fast that what was written in good faith towards the tail end of 2015 could be used or looked at as an update. So for example what's in programme for government just now for low emission zones is not explicitly stated in CAFs. So I think it's fair that if we had a review of CAFs it would be picking up the elements that have already been published and the likes of PFG. To look at it as a live document to find out what for example comes out of this inquiry and comes out of parliamentary statements so that they are captured within the updates to CAFs but I would agree with Graham that as a strategy it's on the right path. Greg McArthur. We were part of the reference group which took forward the CAFs document. I think that goes to show that we actually quite a lot of faith in it. We think it's a good document. I think it's hopefully it will get towards compliance. I think one of the things we need to bear in mind from a planning perspective is certainly is that many of the actions in it are going to be more fruitful in the medium to longer term as well. So there are some short term actions in there obviously but from a planning perspective changing your built environment around isn't going to happen overnight and there are things we have to bear that in mind as we take that forward. The other good thing about CAFs for me is that it's something which is looking to across a different range of disciplines, professions, organisations to do stuff. So it's actually that coordinator which is useful, I think, good. I particularly struck it, I like the diagram in page 11 which talks about the idea about how we need to focus on placemaking and transport. So it's not just the immediate and the initial sort of actions that have to be taken, it's taken up a longer viewpoint in this and actually trying to create places where people want to live, people want to live, people want to have their leisure time which allows a much more healthy environment for them as well and we need to keep an eye on that longer term aspiration as well as the shorter term gains. So in terms of the actions that are in CAFs, I mean you've commented on the approach that CAFs takes as being an exemplar but in terms of the actions, how confident are you that all of these actions can be delivered particularly given that we've got issues with the capacity of local authorities and many stakeholders that CAFs is reliant on to actually get to the point where we can confidently say we're legal, people are going to stop dying. From our perspective, I think that a number of actions have already happened to be honest with you. We've worked to undertake guidance for planners to make sure that they're aware of the issues in terms of their quality and we published that last year in January last year on environmental protection in Scotland. We'll try to roll out an awareness raising programme for planners to make sure that they're in it as well. I think there are also opportunities which we can grasp, as Stephen said, this is a bit of a moving feast. So there are opportunities of things which we can take forward, things such as the new national planning framework when it's looked at in 2020, the Scottish planning policy. I think they can be a bit stronger on air quality. Just now they tend to give it a nod rather than actually say anything totally specific about air quality so there are opportunities there. And certainly, as the committee will know, there's a review of the planning system on just now. A planning bill should be with you at the end of this year. So again, there are opportunities to look at from a planning perspective where it can actually come up to speed and make the mark. I think that in terms of the challenges, the challenge of resource is maybe twofold. There's a real challenge of resource just within the organisations that you see here. But there's also a challenge, and it's a positive challenge, to bring different professions together. Those professions that might move at different speeds have different ambitions or visions. So, for example, engaging with the freight sector or the bus sector to make sure that, as Government, we're listening to what those sectors are saying. So there's a challenge, but it's a positive challenge to bring all those different professions together on the same page at the same time. I'm just going to reiterate what Stephen said, that CAF brings together a wide range of partner organisations all operating within various individual constraints. But I think that the amount of work that's been done since CAF was initiated in 2015 has been very, very good. And we have actually maximised the resources that each organisation has brought to the table. So there will always be constraints upon each of the organisations, and probably on CAFs as a whole, because that's just a practical reality of life. But I think we definitely have brought together the right people around the table and utilised the resources as best we can at this time. Thank you again just to follow that up. I think one of the things about CAFs, that's very, very useful, is it's given us something to gather around and to take together as different professions and different organisations. I'm not sure we would have all worked together much more closely, we didn't have CAFs here, we didn't have the work done in the lead-up to CAFs as well. And I think that's given us all, certainly from a planning perspective, it's given us a better understanding of the issues which we face and how the role that we can play, but also the role that others can play and what we can and cannot do I think that there's enough focus in CAFs on active travel. There is a focus on active travel just now, based on what we knew towards the tail end of 2015. I think that's where this issue of CAFs perhaps being a live document. I think that things have moved on quite substantially on active travel. There's always scope for widening the elements, for example, of active travel in a document like CAFs. Recently, the promotion of the budget towards active travel has shown where ministers' ambitions are going. CAFs was produced at a point in time when we knew what we knew on active travel was included in CAFs. That's where the viewing of the document as a live document could bring what we know now towards the tail end of 2017 into fruition. It's not to say, though, that the actions in CAFs are the actions that we are delivering now. The policies that we're delivering on active travel now are the policies that we're delivering, so CAFs has to follow that rather than the other way round. Active travel is in there, which is good. As I said earlier on, I like the fact that CAFs talks about the role of the built environment and active travel is a key component of that. I, in another role chair the national walking strategy delivery forum, so I'm always keen to see more on active travel, so I would like to see more in it, and I'd like to see a greater recognition, although it's in there, of the role that active travel can play. As Stephen's already said, I think the doubling of the budget for active travel is a step in the right direction, absolutely, but we need to make sure that it's used in the right way and it has the maximum impact. I think just finishing off on that, I think there was a Cycling Scotland conference was yesterday, so we were talking about the role that active travel can play in terms of improving air quality at that conference as well. So I think, as Craig says, that's what CAFs has done is to bring a number of professions and organisations together to talk on a common theme, and no one that I've talked to since CAFs was put together has said that challenging air pollution is a bad idea. So it's just finally convenient. I mean, if a programme for government has kind of overtaken CAFs, then if the Supreme Court is saying that plans need to be updated at UK and Scottish Government level, what's your commitment in Transport Scotland then to update CAFs? Cos it seems that there's a logical updating, an urgent updating that's required from everything that I've heard from you this morning. So CAFs itself is overseen by a governance group, which is co-chaired by a Scottish Government, SEPA in Transport Scotland. It meets every six weeks or so, and within that governance group there is the potential to review where CAFs sits at this point in time. It's not been on the agenda so far, cos we feel that it is in a place that's allowing actions to be achieved, but if following the likes of the inquiry today, that is viewed as a place where we need to go back and review CAFs, and that can be done. Personally, I think it is in a fit for purpose stage just now, but there is always scope to do that. Can I just add one other thing? The CAFs is actually reviewed on an annual basis and an annual progress report is produced, so it may well be that the things that happened in the last year are taken account of in that report, and that then provides a springboard for looking at inclusion in future years. Can you just confirm annually when? Annually, I think last, or this current year for the previous year, it was produced in June, a couple of months. I think it was around June-July time, and that's publicly available on the Scottish Government website as well. Okay, thank you. John Scott. Thank you, convener. I just wanted, in terms of spatial planning and much of the CAFs document and other evidence suggests that an emphasis on modal shift and, of course, a supporter of that, but the document, and I appreciate this very much, is an urban problem, but the document doesn't take much account of rurality and peripherality and the difficulty of a modal shift in terms of the general air quality across the whole of Scotland rather than, in particular, difficult urban black spots. Do you have to comment on that in terms of spatial planning and thinking about that modal shift, really? I think you're right insofar as modal shifts, something which is easier to do in urban areas just because of the circumstances which are there. That doesn't mean we should not try to do it in rural areas as well. I think it relies a lot on trying to make sure we can link the public transport better. We can also look at how we can better locate some of the new developments that we have in place as well. The idea of a sustainable development or a sustainable place is that it doesn't add to people having to use their cars to travel, to get to work or to get to the shops. We should be looking at ways in which we can make sure that happens through making sure that new developments are linked to public transport services. Ideally trains, but buses as well, if that's possible. We should also be looking to see if we can build at a scale where the services that we require in a particular area can have a viability for those services to be able to be located as well. You'll have a local shop, a chemist, a doctor's surgery, a lot of that as well. That in itself isn't always easy because not all the developments that applicants put in are going to be of that scale. There's a job to be done to try to make sure that you can build that up and think about how it works cumulatively as well. Excellent, thank you. It's just really to make certain that that's part of the thinking as well, the kind of different approach almost to planning in that regard. It's probably not as strongly articulated as it perhaps could be. Thank you. Let's move us on to Donald Cameron. Thank you. Morning to the panel. Last week the committee was in Custorfin where there is a well-known problem related to air quality. There are also housing pressures and a need for more housing in that area. There are much-loved green spaces around Custorfin. There is, of course, the airport and there is a number of transport interchanges, road, rail, tram, et cetera. How, as planners, can you ensure that these sort of multiple diverse pressures of development when you're developing a really balanced against each other? With difficulty. I think one of the things I would like to see is I move away from thinking about planning as just processing planning applications. That's an important part of what planners do. But what it tends to be is rather reactive. What we should be trying to do and this is something we're trying to promote through the review of the planning system is a much more front-loaded approach where you get your stakeholders, your communities, all the people who are responsible for that area or for your interests in that area to come together to look at what the opportunities for that area are, to look at what the constraints are for that area, and to try and come up with a vision for that area. And then from there, work out how you're going to deliver that vision through some form of route map. And that means saying to people, you have responsibility for doing this, you've got resources to put in here. What that does is that gives you a much more holistic and rounded view of how that community will work over time. And that development plan or that master plan or whatever it is for that area would provide the context for processing planning applications so you would have a more rounded approach taken to the development of that area. And the planning application would just be a part of that rather than actually being the key part, the main part of that. I'm pleased to hear that because in Custofen, for example, when people hear of a new planning development, they immediately think, and they were telling us this last week, they immediately think, this is going to add to the problem and their hackles are raised at once and they need reassurance. Do you have anything to add to that? Do any of the other panel members want to add to that? How do we nip that in the bud and reassure people? I think we now have to encourage people to believe that the planning system can be the solution to a lot of the problems. And it's selling the message, but also making it a convincing message that the previous potential planning errors or the things that didn't add up in the past won't be repeated in the future, but actually the planning system will work beneficially for communities and populations. And if they embrace the process and become involved with that, then they can help steer and educate the planners at the same time. So it's really a two-way process of communication and also full engagement with the local communities. Good morning to the panel. It's just to ask you if any of you have any thoughts on what has proved, in my view, a very challenging issue, which is the involvement of communities that don't necessarily get involved in these issues, either because they're too busy on low incomes and challenged in that way, and how can these processes for planning be more inclusive, because it is quite alarming when you look at who does engage and who doesn't. And that's not a criticism of yourselves. It's just if you've got any thought to be valuable. Before you ask the question, in the context of new developments, to what extent can incorporating green infrastructure mitigate their impacts and how well-cited are those who are in charge of these developments on that as an option? Can I answer that one first, if that's okay? I think green infrastructure is becoming much more a mainstream part of the way in which development is happening. I think planners and local authorities are generally there to try and promote that as often as they possibly can to their development plan and through the assessment of planning applications. I think developers are starting to look at it as well when they're putting their application in. I think that probably more work could be done on that, to be honest with you, but I think that we are seeing more and more sub-schemes, for example, coming in, but there's a bit of work to try and make sure that the original applications that come in think about this as a mainstream part of what they do. So I think that we are, along the road with that, starting to become quite important. In terms of the issue around communities, it is incredibly hard to engage with communities, but it's important that we do. The engagement has been a part of the planning system since 1969. I think that over the last decade or so, planners have moved away from the old traditional approaches where we used to organise a meeting in a drafty church all on a Wednesday night when the football was on and nobody turned up. I think that there's much more creative approaches being taken towards engagement now. Social media, the growth of the shirets. There's been a number of shirets organised and funded by the Scottish Government, and I think that they are a really useful way of trying to get people to talk about what they want for the community at the start of the process, rather than what they don't want for the community at the end of the process. I think that they are useful. I think that they have tried, as far as I can see, to engage those who aren't engaged because they're generally over a number of days and you don't have to be there for three or four days, so it allows people to drop in and drop out of that as well. I think that there is still much work to be done on some of the harder-to-reach groups, absolutely. But I think that, as a profession, we are looking to see how we can do that. As opposed to part of that process, we do support organisations such as PAS, Planning Aid Scotland, to work with communities and they're doing more and more work with harder-to-reach communities. I think that it's to make me sure the depth of commitment to community engagement across the profession. About 20 per cent of Artupac Scotland's members volunteer for Planning Aid for Scotland, for Art for any profession. I think that the will is certainly there, but there are logistical issues which we're still trying to overcome, but we're getting there bit by bit and we're trying to become more creative as we take that forward. Was there another question? I just want to ask another different question, which is to talk about policy integration. There are obviously a number of layers of Governments that are involved in this. There's local government, there's the Scottish Government, there's the UK Government, and there's the EU structure around that. What are your observations on that integration? Is it working? How do you deal with a situation where, for example, one local authority may take one approach that is different from its neighbouring local authority, or, for instance, we have a different approach in Dumfries than there might be in Carlisle? These kind of trans boundary issues. How do we deal with those appropriately? I'll answer that one first. I think that policy integration is getting much better than it was. Because equality is effectively devolved to the Scottish Parliament, we've been able to forge out, take our own path and are considerably ahead of some other parts of the UK in what we're doing, what we're proposing, and indeed the pollution levels. As legislation has pretty much all fallen from the EU and been fully implemented across the UK, we've had the UK equality strategy in place since 1997, which has now been updated twice since the last version in 2007. The broad policy framework is there in the background. Scotland has decided to actually move ahead and be more proactive in relation to implementing equality measures and also strict limits, for example, for a particular matter. I think it is effective and because we have that individuality, we have been able to do what we want. Can you repeat the second question? It's just how, in practice, deal with a situation where Glasgow City Council takes a different attitude to low-emission zones than it's North Lanarkshire, for example, or whatever it might be. That's one of the main aims of CAFS is to ensure consistency across the whole of Scotland. Initially in relation to the low-emission zones where the four largest cities have expressed interest to implement, the CAFS process will oversee that on a consistent basis. We have a national modelling framework which, although provides individual results for each of the cities, is done on a consistent basis. The results are effectively comparable. In relation to the, for example, non-low-emission zone local authorities, the more rural ones, certainly CEPA and the local authorities are in constant dialogue. There are various liaison groups where best practice can be shared. The fundamentals of CAFS can be brought to the table and it's through the local equality management process that the process is very, it's recently been streamlined to ensure that people report in the same way that the data is presented in the same way. And CEPA certainly sees all of the reports from each of the local authorities. So where there may be inconsistencies, we can comment back to local authorities on trying to align them more with, say for example, best practice in a local authority. It is challenging with 32 separate authorities but I think we do have a process in place which does ensure a wide level of consistency and many of the solutions for equality problems are common. There isn't anything wild or wacky out there. People know the solutions. They know where they need to be implemented and in most cases local authorities are doing that. I think it's a good question in terms of the relationships between the different levels of government. So if I can take it the next year down from what Graham's mentioned in terms of CAFS, we're in the process now of delivering the low mission zone delivery groups on the ground. So we've been quite clear to state that we want that to be a partnership between central government and local government. So the LAZ delivery groups are set up so that it has members from both levels of government on it. Within the LAZ delivery group for Glasgow that's been set up, you then have a suite of professions that are bringing their expertise into the room. So it's not just relying on environmental professionals. There's transport, planning, legal, procurement, equalities and that's happening right now so it's just to give you confidence at that level of engagement between national government and local government is happening. And then if you flip it around the other way we're in contact with the joint equality unit within the UK Government so that we're at least sighted on the paths that they're taking on what might seem like minor topics like signage for low mission zones. You could have the best low mission zone in the entire universe but if you don't have signs for it to get in no one knows what they're entering and those signs have to be consistent if you're travelling for example from London to Manchester to Edinburgh so we're making sure that we're working across national governments as well for consistency and that has to be the key in all of this. Can I just bring in some planning perspective? In planning we've got a very useful planning hierarchy. Obviously planning's devolved totally to the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government. The planning hierarchy allows us to look at what happens at a national level through the Scottish Government through the national planning framework and Scottish planning policy in another suite of documents. We then have at a regional level in the four city regions we have strategic development plans and strategic development plan authorities and they're a useful way of working across some of those more urban areas to look at what the issues are and to get agreement on a strategic development plan how we take that forward. In the local area we have our local development plan so that there's quite a clear hierarchy. The things to mention however is the current review of the planning system is looking to I think the term that's used is repurpose the strategic development plan authorities and strategic development plans themselves. The idea behind that I think is to try and create a lot better horizontal integration amongst of planning, transport, infrastructure regional city deals and things like that which I think could be useful but I think we still have to keep something at that level which gives us that strategic overview of those city region areas because that's what I think we could most bang for our buck. Will you finish, Mr Cameron? Angus MacDonald. That's a convenient and good morning to the panel members. We know that there are 34 distinct actions to be carried out by 2020 in relation to section 14 of CAFs now. We've perhaps touched on this during Mark Ruskell's questioning but can you tell the committee what work each of your respective bodies are carrying out to ensure that the action set out in section 14 of CAFs are being implemented or? To start off with. From the transport perspective from my view I think there's three components to CAFs. The first is linked to the existing actions across the likes of active travel low-mission vehicles and such like and that's been taken forward by a suite of officials within Transport Scotland. The second group is linked specifically to the work under the national low-mission framework and development of low-mission zones. That's myself particularly that is leading on that work and then there's a third set of actions or relatively small set of actions around about air quality management areas that are associated with the trunk load network. So the last one on that element is focusing particularly on, I think, the A75 in Creef. So we're working with Perthwick and Ross Council just now on their air quality action plan and reviewing that as it's about to go to committee. From an arty by perspective we were, as part of the advisory group the reference group we were charged with trying to improve the understanding of air quality amongst planners and to try and make sure there was a link between planning and other professions. As I mentioned earlier on the key things about that was to publish some guidance for planners which we did with Environmental Protection Scotland last year. We held a conference as well trying to bring together the air quality people with the planners to try and break down some barriers to allow people to get different perspectives and to get an idea of who did what and what their constraints and the opportunities were to do that as well. We've also had been working in the past with SIPA looking at training and still a bit of work to do on that because we want to make sure it's not just seen as as planners sitting in isolation we should be trained about how planners work with others across local authorities and community planning partnerships as well so there's probably a bit of work to be done on that. And we've also tried to publicise amongst the profession through using our journal The Scottish Planner, we've had an article on that on the guidance and just generally tried to tie it in much more to the way in which we work as a profession. So I think there's been some movement made on that. The other thing I think which we've got a role to do is to make sure that the review of the national planning framework and the review of Scottish planning policy which were originally going to be in 2019 and being pushed back to 2020 we need to make sure that air quality is seen as a key component of that. Just now there are references to air pollution in both but they were both published pre-calfs so I need to try and make sure that calfs is mainstreamed into it into those documents as well so we will be working to do that as far as we can. From Sifa's perspective we've been charged with delivery of the national modelling framework so this is providing the evidence base for the four cities which are currently looking at implementing a lower mission zone so there's been a lot of construction of scientific models input of data analysis of outputs which are now feeding into the LEZ proposals for each of the potential cities. We've been assisting the Scottish Government in the development of guidance and policy so this has included the revision of the local air quality management system revised policy guidance for local authorities through the local air quality management system we've also been helping local authorities to implement all aspects of calfs which are appropriate to them and so viewing their reports seeing what where calfs is linked in and also informing them of where further benefits or gains can be achieved. The training package which Craig mentioned with Sifa is still leading and working on at the moment and that's aimed to be delivered by the end of this calendar year ready for roll out in 2018 and primarily as well as the number of the calves Government's group. We're charged with assisting the Scottish Government in overall delivery of the calf's objectives as well so where we may not necessarily have regulatory responsibility we're still assisting the Scottish Government in delivery of calves. Okay, thanks and would you say that all these actions are being delivered on time and within budget or are there any barriers that you're hitting on? We didn't have a budget for it to be honest with you so we've just done it it's been staff time more than anything else most of the stuff we've done. As I said I think we've started I think calfs has acted as that sort of focus which is certainly from the planning profession's perspective it's focused the mind a bit and I think what I'm keen that we see is in the new iteration excuse me the new iteration of development plans we'll probably see much more emphasis on the role that planning can play in terms of air quality I think it's important to say that planning is not the silver bullet in this it's not going to give the immediate impact but planning is a role to play and I think we can see that I think in looking at and scanning some development plans yesterday from across different parts of Scotland I think air quality is something which planners have in their mind but they might not necessarily cite it specifically within a policy there are some policies in development plans we'll talk about the quality of public places we'll talk about place making and we'll talk about reducing car travel whether that's unnecessary as well so it's it's not I say it's specifically mentioned but the idea of trying to improve air quality is something which is part of what they're trying to do Cross call, do you want to come over here? Yeah, thanks Covey I'm specifically on local development plans I mean that the process behind the production and LDP is pretty robust and evolves different stakeholders it goes to the Scottish Government examination process at the end of that but have there been any examples where SEPA or Transport Scotland have stepped in with a local development plan and said hang on a minute this major housing allocation or this transport development in this place is going to worsen air quality therefore you have to remove that from your local development plan not to say that we haven't done that but I'm not aware of that I haven't seen anything as statutory consultees there's a role to comment on planning applications and they will have a role in processing the development plan itself so as I said Eleanor I would like to think there's probably more value in trying to have that upfront policy in place through the development plan so I think there's a role for Transport Scotland SEPA and other organisations to engage at the start of these processes so we'll get the policies right which present the framework for the planning applications when they're assessed It's not something I'm aware of but it's certainly something I can check and get back to the committee on to ensure we'll see where the SEPA has commented I think that would be useful there was an example with Perth and Kinross where a major housing allocation for 800 houses was objected to by the director of public health at NHS Tayside in my quality management area however it still sits there in the local development plan was approved so I'm kind of curious as to we sort of talk about a good practice but what is the role of the regulator in Transport Scotland then in making a decision what going over the head of local authorities if there is a serious impact which could be demonstrated at a national level Okay so you'll come back to us on that in due course Okay thank you on that and directing this at Craig McLaren Are planners able to effectively evaluate the cumulative impacts of emissions and develop special plans that reduce human exposure I think like myself as a planner the science of air quality is not something which all planners will know about and I don't think to be honest with you it's something they need to know about I think what they have to do is seek advice from colleagues who deal with air quality and see what the impacts are the guidance which we published was very much awareness raising and it did talk them through particularly for a planning processing and planning application the process and what they should be doing at certain times and who they should be talking to and what they should be thinking about and doing that process so that's raised awareness but they will not know the science and the mathematics behind it all to be frank with you it's quite a specialised art and science so I think one of the things we tried to do with that guidance when we launched it was bring together planners with those responsible air quality and local authorities to try and almost break down those barriers and bring people together so they could work out whose role was to do what on them but you'd agree that the cumulative impact is becoming more and more of an issue community impact cumulative impact cumulative impact cumulative impact was one of the things which was mentioned in the guidance and I suppose in many ways that's one of the key mindsets that planners have because we are trained to think not just to train beyond the here and now and the immediate geography of an area it's about thinking about how things add up and what impact they have over a period of time and also within that broader geography so planners are well suited to do that and to think that through but I think they need to work with their quality colleagues as well because it strikes me that airports are very much magnets for vehicles whether they be cars, buses, freight they attract a great many vehicles in the course of a day very often they are surrounded by housing but with a little green infrastructure by necessity to what extent are airports a concern around air quality and pollution I don't know the answer to that to be honest with you is we're trying to make sure that airports or any major hubs which attract people are served better by public transport and we minimise the need for people to actually travel by car to them as well and you've seen that happening I think at airports across Scotland where there's been initiatives which have tried to provide people with the facilities and the services to get to airports the Edinburgh trams networks an example of that but you've also seen places like Glasgow and Edinburgh introducing fees for parking and dropping people down as well I think that they are partly at the whole idea trying to encourage people to use public transport to get to airports but if you think of the number of air parks that there are around the airports obviously flying off on holiday there is an encouragement to bring your vehicle to the airports is there any statistical information about the extent to which airports are a problem in this regard I can take a guess at it to my knowledge there are no airports within air quality management areas I might be wrong on that but certainly in the evidence that we've looked at for air quality management areas airports have not been part of the main dialogue I think part of that is by their very nature they tend to be in open spaces so the air quality management challenges that we have in Scotland have a tendency to be in urban spaces with the street canyons and the poor air quality doesn't have anywhere to go but the very nature of airports they are actually the opposite so I would take a good guess that air quality management areas do not have airports within them for that reason The main problem is access to and from the airport and the volume of traffic for the purposes of local air quality management an airport wouldn't be included in an air quality management area because it doesn't meet the criteria but you wouldn't have human receptors within the actual grounds of the airport just a terminal building so certainly access is a big issue and it's the case that I think that the air parks themselves I don't think it's really been quantified but there are significant amounts of traffic going to the edges of airports which may well need some investigation in the future I'll get that, should this be looked at it possibly should be looked at but who would look at it I mean the local authority have to look at the access roads within their local authority area as part of the air quality management process but if a problem is not identified as existing then obviously an air quality management area isn't required so it may well be that the volume of traffic for Scottish airports is not of the same magnitude and therefore an air quality problem doesn't currently exist but that doesn't mean that it may not exist in the future at some point if traffic were to increase John Scott I'm just going back to Stephen Thomson's point and one of the things that struck me at Henry and our visit to Crestorfen and the intersections at John's Road where you have that monitor was the architecture of the buildings around that area when the wind was blowing along the corridor the Glasgow to Edinburgh corridor the Crestorfen Road corridor then that's where you have a problem so will climate change as predicted mitigate given that these effects given that we're expecting more wind and rain and less high pressure systems shall we say over Scotland but also in terms of the architecture in terms of our planning question presumably you no longer would want to have high rise buildings around intersections such as those which essentially are trap the air in those areas rather than allow it to disperse as we've just discussed around airports would that be a feature of future planning considerations I'll take the first part it's a fair point in terms of the impacts on air quality are somewhat determined by the local meteorology so if you have the wind blowing in a particular direction along a street canyon then it will clean out the air quality but if that wind moves say at 90 degrees it's going to actually create a vortex which does the opposite and it will hold the air pollution in so I'm not saying that we're solely reliant on the meteorology to solve our air quality challenges that's absolutely not where we want to be because the meteorology will play a part and that's why you'll see trends on a 24-hour or weekly or even a yearly basis depending on what meteorology is within Scotland even if we did absolutely nothing the meteorology might have a proportion or contribution to either improving or decreasing the air quality as well The street canyoning effects I think we're probably an issue recently so the guidance I've mentioned which we publish with environmental protection in Scotland raises that for planners to consider as part of their assessment of planning applications and if they're putting forward development plan policies on it as well so I think it's something which is the awareness of what's being raised what I wait to see as to how that'll actually be implemented I think on top of that that this technology that's being tested right now in terms of added to buildings or added to infrastructure that can attract pollution and essentially make the pollution stick to the infrastructure the biggest challenge we believe is that it depends on against linked back to meteorology is how much time the pollution has enabled to adhere to the material so the theory and the labs is that this material will stick to or the pollution will stick to the adhesive materials in reality with meteorology moving the pollution around it literally doesn't have enough time to adhere to infrastructure Just developing that thought then are there materials therefore to be avoided in terms of cladding of buildings close to areas where the pollution might be a problem in terms of reducing that problem in the design of buildings Is that what you're saying? I don't know the answer to that to be honest with you but just to back up what Stephen said one of the things which our guidance talks about is green spaces and trying to bring more vegetation in for example as well because that can help that's a stickiness as well so I think that's something which will continue and I think which planners will try and encourage as much as possible new developments I know the it's maybe again in two parts about in terms of the materials that can be put on to noise barriers so that there's a mix of noise and air quality I know the work that I've been doing for the World Road Association that that type of technology has also looked at in Korea so it's there are examples I think there's also examples in Europe about the use of vegetation to act as an absorbent for air pollution so it goes back to something like the question several minutes ago about green infrastructure and the role that it can play If I could nip quickly back to active travel and ask specifically if you reckon the cycling action plan and the national walking strategy are adequate and has progress been made towards a target of 10% of all journeys by 2020 being made by bike From speaking to colleagues in Transport Scotland they seem confident that that is the target that they're going to go towards I'm not aware of the updates to the cycle action plan or the national walking strategy so by that I take from colleagues that these plans are sufficient for where they want those plans to go to medium term How do sources of air pollution outwith the control of local authorities how is it effectively controlled for areas such as trunk roads or areas that are controlled specifically under SEPA you mentioned the A75 as an area how do you control it and monitor it and therefore police it monitoring element we will rely on the national network of sensors that are set up that Scottish Government provide to local authorities to monitor we would rely on those sensors on the A75 because they essentially run through grief and those monitors are fit for purpose in terms of the actual mitigation on a scheme like that we've been involved in the development of or the co-development of the air quality action plan by Perth Lincoln Ross Council from its outset so we've made several mentions of what could potentially or could potentially not be done in a space like grief which is by its nature quite a traditional set up of high street relatively high three, four story high buildings in a tight street canyon effect where the traffic doesn't really have anywhere to go so we've been involved in the development of the air quality plans from the outset in terms of monitoring on the main trunk load network we've trialled low cost sensors which are relative to the reference equipment that SIPA will provide so reference equipment might be £20,000 to £30,000 a low cost sensor might be in the region of say 500 to £3,000 to £4,000 we've trialled that technology on the trunk load network we've given example we've used when the 4th road bridge was closed so we deployed those sensors at relatively high speed so they were deployed within a week and it's just to the north of King Cardin bridge to see whether there was any trends in the air quality as a result of the bridge closing and I should say the air quality the low cost air quality sensors they're not meant to replace reference equipment and that's not the purpose of them it's simply to highlight whether there's a trend in the movement of air quality so we're more than interested in the low cost sensors on the trunk load network in relation to industrial activities SIPA issues permits under the various legal regimes such as pollution prevention and control for operators to operate their activities within specified limits and controls so a permit will in all likelihood have emission limit values for discharges into the atmosphere most operators are required to monitor on a frequent basis in accordance with the terms of their condition of the permits and also it's the case at SIPA assesses compliance with those permits via inspections monitoring those kind of things activities which don't fall into SIPA's remit there's the potential for regulation under the Clean Air Act so those are responsible for activities such as small scale emitters of potential pollutants such as smoke, dust, grit and the local authority is the enforcing agency for those and to take it down further a further level where air pollution may be considered to be a nuisance under the Environmental Protection Act local authorities also have powers to investigate what are called statutory nuisances so these are very localised small scale emissions SIPA doesn't have any regulatory remit over the Clean Air Act or statutory nuisance there's a clear legal break between our regulatory duties and the local authorities regulatory duties I've got two questions I want to go back to the monitors 75 so did you play any part in for example there's new attitude traffic lights can be installed in the middle of a village which the 75 travels through right through the middle of I would imagine there'll be some impact of traffic starting and stopping where it doesn't at the moment does anyone get involved in actually looking at the implications with regards to installing a scheme to start with that the solutions that we would look at for some where like grief would require is to look at not just the traffic light signals but the road alignment the speeds for example are going through the parking arrangements which may be incredibly unpopular and might not be deliverable I think there's then the elements of looking in a space like grief to the east and west so is there a way that the traffic can be managed so that the flow of traffic going through the town of grief is at a place where the pollution levels can drop purely by the density of vehicles moving through so we would get involved in the management of the trunk road asset where required it's somewhat disappointing or surprising that there's not some trigger for where again I'm back to the 75 a major trunk road with a far higher than an average level of HGVs which are considerable emitters of pollutants there's a scheme going to be installed there which in the face of it is supposed to help with health and wellbeing in the community to stop traffic speeding within yards of buildings and there's been no consideration of what the impact of potentially an increase in pollutants on installed vehicles is there no trigger for that when there's other consultations going on I know you've talked about grief but obviously that hasn't happened in Dumfries and Galloway it's not a particular situation I'm familiar with so I won't comment on the specifics of it but a local authority has to assess when conducting its annual assessment of equality any significant proposals or developments which may have an impact on equality so I can certainly check to see that Dumfries and Galloway's report for this current year to see whether that's been mentioned in there because they may have taken account for it and it may be that the emissions may not be significant enough for additional measures to be required but as I said I don't know the specifics of it but I can certainly report back to the committee right final point on that and I'm sure that there's no any specific enforcement or penalty provisions associated with section 85 of the environment act have you ever considered using them and do you believe that enforcement provision should be created to allow you to do that? Well to date CEPA hasn't approached the Scottish ministers to use the section 85 powers primarily because we've always tried to take action with section 85 the question then becomes is there any point using them because ultimately there's no recourse for CEPA to take action against the local authority so it's possibly the fact that we haven't used them because there isn't a penalty provision but whether that would actually make things more effective I'm not actually sure I think the relationship that CEPA is doing is very good and I think it's always better to work in a more constructive way with local authorities there are no local authorities that we at this time would even consider using section 85 powers on because their performance is very good in relation to the provisions of the act itself so I don't think the specific enforcement provisions would actually be beneficial but what the convener mentions airports and air quality and Finlay Carson talks about the freight on the 75, so the port of Cairnry and I'm aware is being monitored for its air quality and I'm actually waiting on a response from D&G council about what is the level of pollution but what is being done or what can be done around ferry ports as far as freight and idling lorries similar to convener's question about airports it's a difficult one because ports are there essentially to take traffic so I'm not quite sure if you can minimise the use of the roads that's the thing I plan on trying to do but there might be other things that can be done Purely in terms of the engine technology that's used by the college industry now for freight the Euro 6 engines that are used are a lot cleaner now than they were historically and the Euro 6 engines within freight has been proven to work in the real world at the level that they should work at rather than what they should work or in theory should work in a laboratory so the freight sector in terms of their use of Euro 6 is moving towards that type of exhaust technology that is as clean as it can be I guess I'll pass on the elements of idling If the local authority do, after conducting monitoring, find the potential or a potential exceedence or an actual exceedence and they are required to declare an air quality management area which then kicks into place the development of an air quality action plan where you would look at specific measures which are required to bring that particular area back into compliance with the Scottish objectives so it really is a case of once a problem is found then the measures kick in before that it's really up to the local authority to implement any measures potentially to avoid creating a local air quality management area as well Let's say I'm a member of the public sees an older lorry or bus chugging along the road apparently spewing out a lot of ffumes What scope do I have to report my concerns that those vehicles are damaging the air quality who do I go to and what happens next? I think that's the remit of the local authority but I have to confess I'm not aware of the procedure that may be in place for a member of the public reporting that I think that it's the same that we report to the environmental health within the local authority to get the voice heard And what powers do the local authority have around this? Is it important to get this on the record? Well I think that that's the starting point for the monitoring regimes that the local authorities have albeit within existing air quality management areas I think that the challenge is where those areas are not declared as air quality management areas to act as a catalyst to get the local authorities to look at those spaces So to be cool let's say there's a fleet of lorries or a fleet of buses owned by a particular company that it would appear problematic there's no direct opportunity to address that it has to be gone through this whole process That's my understanding is that it would have to go to the local authority to make a call on the level of impact OK OK, let's explore this bus issue because we hear about the needs for incentives and public support to bring about changes in some of these vehicles we have the green bus fund we hear about incentives for retrofitting mostly national government retrofitting scheme some years ago as well I guess my question is that's all very well and good but what about the moral obligation for some of these bus companies there are some great examples, let's acknowledge that but what about the moral obligation of these bus companies why should the public bus partially largely completely be used to tackle air pollution that's being perpetrated in private businesses The bus sector from what we can see is doing its fair bit to improve the fleet across Scotland we have over 10% of the buses in Scotland just now are Euro 6 or better in terms of their emissions there are a number of operators that are actively looking to improve their fleet Euro 6 or hybrid vehicles in case of Edinburgh fully electric I think there's a combination of the work that's been done through the green bus fund as it is just now and the submissions that have gone to Mr Mackay for the spending review to support work on low emission zones and a big proportion of that would go to the greening of the fleets I think bus sector are extremely aware of the challenges that they have around about air pollution and in fact I know from speaking to operators they themselves have talked about the obligations that they have to increase their patronage by offering a service that is efficient but also meets environmental credentials of the passengers that they're wanting to carry What would you say in response to some of the concerns that have been raised with us in the course of our enquiries that potentially where you introduce a low emission zone you could in theory have the bus companies ensuring that the vehicles that are operating in those zones are compliant but move the pollutant vehicles into other parts of major cities I think that the design that we've seen with low emission zones right across Europe is that they are focused on a particular geography but taking the buses for example the buses that move in and out of the low emission zones don't tend to just operate in the low emission zones they move out into the suburbs as well so the gains by having the emission standards set within the LEZ actually ripple out beyond the boundary of the LEZs and we've seen that in many cities across Europe the approaches that we would be looking to introduce into Scotland's four big cities which is what was stated in the programme for government so I think that the second part of that is about the emission load that certain spaces can carry so in the centres of the big cities where LEZs may be set up the LEZ mitigation is there to control the access or create those access restrictions because there is at a certain level outwith and beyond that there is a carrying capacity within the natural environment to dilute the pollutant effects of not just buses but any type of vehicle Mark Ruskell What has been done to look at the numbers of buses that will have to be retrofitted in order to meet the needs of this initial tranche of four low emission zones and what kind of budget is required then to deliver that Graham has already mentioned the work that the national modelling framework has been put in place we have collected traffic data, quick detail, traffic data for the four cities in Scotland Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee to underpin that air quality modelling I can use Glasgow as an example because that is the first LEZ that the modelling has suggested that there could be upwards of round about a thousand buses that we could be looking at depending on the space obviously of how the LEZ is set up we if you want to focus specifically on buses the upgrade of a bus from an old Euro 3 bus to a modern Euro 6 diesel could be anywhere from about £200,000 to £130,000 if you are looking at retrofitting you could be looking at round about anywhere between £10,000 to £16,000 £15,000 seems to be the average so you can start multiplying those numbers up to get an idea assuming that it all comes out of the public purse for what we could be looking at just for the bus sector but it is a substantial figure I think it would be useful convener if the committee could get hold of the exact details of numbers of buses that might need to be retrofitted and potential budget we can certainly provide that and I think that it is somewhat dependent on the size of the LEZ as well if the LEZ starts small and then grow in size over a period of time then the number of buses that would have to be retrofitted over that time period as well would expand as the LEZ grows or the change in size say what Mr Roskell was just requested which is a very good idea if you could provide any evidence of the bus companies playing their part in the costs of retrofitting etc because it would be useful to get a handle on the extent to which that is going on let's tease out the low emission zone subject to David Stewart thank you convener can I ask a few more concentrate questions about LEZs in the panel's view will there be a pilot LEZ next year why firstly because it's a stated programme for government commitment to put the first LEZ in place by the end of 2018 that's certainly what my team within Transport Scotland has been tasked to deliver and we're actively now setting up the LEZ delivery groups and the LEZ leadership groups that will be chaired by ministers to make sure that that's delivered on the ground so we will aim to deliver that that's what we've been tasked to do on behalf of ministers and that's what we will do can I ask the other panelist I'll take Steven's work for it okay I also believe there will be an LEZ in place by 2018 CEP is working very closely with Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government in providing the evidence base for the various scenarios and I don't see any particular barriers to us not achieving the stated aims just looking at some of the evidence that the committee has looked at from local authorities and other just to give you a snapshot of some of the comments that we've had first of all a lack of guidance needs more time timescale challenging no information implementation plans and Euro 6 this is obviously from a bus company not possible at this time I personally support LEZ I think it's very ambitious very carefully what's happened in London I have got real concerns about this happening next year and particularly I think Steven you've been very forthright in this including that's part of your responsibility it seems to me there's some worries from local authorities about this actually happening because frankly some local authorities and the correspondence I've had are not sure what they're bidding into would you share that issue that they have some worries about what is the scheme going to be about in devising LEZs I think this I've heard the phrase this is the new new mentioned several times in low-missions zones in Scotland and that's correct that this will be the first low-missions zone that we're putting in place in Scotland my mind always goes back to the timescale in terms of delivering LEZs so for me it's in three parts the timescale starts when the local authority publishes the design for the LEZ so that's the first part the second part is then when the LEZ goes live so in Scotland we've committed to put it in place by the end of 2018 so that's the second part and then the third part is when the LEZ enforcement begins so it's crucial in all of this in terms of the development of lead-in times that there's not a confusion between the LEZ going live at the end of 2018 and the enforcement beginning in terms of if it is a penalty regime that comes out that that starts immediately on the same day we believe that that will not be the case so there's a three-stage approach to the roll-out of LEZs and the lead-in time for that is one of the components that's been discussed just now within the building Scotland's low-missions-own consultation that's live just now I would be worried if local authorities didn't have concerns about LEZs I'm relying on them to come up with as many questions as possible so we can iron them out before the first is rolled out I could ask a bit technology and clearly London has been leading the way in the UK in this issue and certainly speaking it's unfortunate we couldn't have gone ahead with our first panel today but nevertheless I mean in London if I understand it correctly it's been around 100 million to set this up and that they have got technology which is vehicle recognition number plates very very expensive does that exist for example if it was going to be Glasgow as being quoted as the pilot does that exist currently is the budget or the technology there to recognise vehicles automatically as they enter an LEZ so again there's a couple of points to that the first is that the ANPR technology is used well in Scotland and is widespread in Scotland it's used for bustling and enforcement and for example Glasgow is one of many cities that has bustling cameras already set up so the technology itself is not new it's pretty mature and is well understood by local authorities the cost of the technology actually in terms of setting up LEZs is not the biggest component part that is the cost to the upgrading of the fleet and supporting upgrading of the fleet so the actual physical construction and of the ANPR cameras and the wiring that that's based on is not the biggest part of the LEZ costs that said the bustling technology that is used is for that particular purpose so if the ANPR is the route that Scottish ministers decide to use for LEZs and that does seem to be the element that we've proposed in the consultation then there will be a need for the roll-out of that camera technology and the spaces within the cities that we are talking about I guess there's then a question of whether that technology is fixed all the time or whether it can be mobile or whether it's a mix of those and again those are, I'm hoping that's what we'll find out through the consultation of whether there is a need for just permanent cameras or mobile cameras as well One of the key issues which has perhaps had an element of great controversy is whether older polluting private vehicles should also be included and we've seen examples in the past for example the referendum here in Edinburgh on congestion charging was defeated I'm not making an argument one way or the other I'm really making the point that whilst I think we all in this room understand the worries about pollution in Scotland it's also about how you implement it and bringing in private vehicles which obviously are polluting you also raise the bar in terms of opposition What's the transport Scotland take on that particular issue? Well, in terms of the discussions that we've had with ministers we've been very clear that we want ministers to be bold and ambitious to cover a mix of vehicles that include private cars so there has to be a reason for those types of vehicles to not be included within low-mission zones and again that's what we've stated in the consultation The bold and ambitious element then links into the science that backs up the rationale for a particular vehicle to be included within an LAZ There's also additional secondary elements that could be included in terms of encouraging modal shift that we've heard about this morning and part of that is to move people out of private cars and into other forms of transport The bus sector again are very clear that they want journey time reliability to be improved and part of that is to have fewer cars on the road and to get the people who are in those cars into public transport And within the decision making we're obviously talking next year to be hopefully Glasgow as the pilot 2020 Within that would local authorities have the power to have a local referendum to decide whether they will go ahead with an LAZ or is this the decision that's going to be made at Scottish Government level, it will happen and local governments just got to go along with it The decision that local authorities have got within the control of transport within their local space is for the local authorities to decide The local authorities that we've spoken to so far for those four big cities particularly Glasgow and Edinburgh have publicly committed to low emission zones so this is what we believe elected members are wanting to push forward and we've got meetings already planned with Aberdeen and Dundee local authorities as well to gauge their interest on moving from a feasibility of LAZ into the published political commitment to LAZ There's no suggestion your discussion with local authorities that they will require a local referendum to go ahead with this Not quite the referendum the discussions that we've had so far with Glasgow and Edinburgh have been around the need for further consultation on the city-specific designs for LAZ so the LAZ consultation that we have right now is round about the guiding principles around national standards for LAZ but I would imagine if the design of the Glasgow LAZ that's been worked on right now I would imagine that there will be a need or desire for a local consultation by Glasgow on the design of that very specific city-specific LAZ as well Finally convener should emissions be reduced per passenger or per vehicle? I can tell you what I think we have to do in terms of what's measurable which is per vehicle because that's what's measured coming out of the tailpipe although that's what we can measure in terms of the equipment that we have right now there's certainly been several publications by Professor Begg over the last year which has made extremely strong cases to look at the additional metric of per head and of course that's from a bus sector perspective of moving one person out of a car or moving 70 people out of 70 cars into one bus so there is a rationale for looking at that metric as well Thank you, convener Richard Lyle Before we move off LAZ can I ask Stephen Thompson to comment to Donna Graham Applegate CEPA I believe have done some modelling on low emission zones Can I ask you about the findings of the CEPA model and whether other vehicle classes as Stephen Thompson touched on should be needed to be included from the outset in low emission zones CEPA has conducted the modelling for the four cities and primarily concentrated on Glasgow as being the first low emission zone to be in place The findings themselves I can submit a report to the committee on the very specific findings but in general terms it was found that the buses for Glasgow are the greatest contributor to NO2 pollution and reducing emissions from them would have the greatest immediate impact on air quality in the city In relation to cars themselves there could potentially be benefits for congestion and number of journeys taken but the air quality benefits would not be as significant as for buses themselves so the model itself can run various scenarios based on the vehicle fleet and the levels of pollution and determine which are the most appropriate vehicles to target in the first instance but it is the case that while the main body initial focus may be on buses then other vehicle classes will come into the future Thanks for that Can I turn to the questions I really want to ask As you already have said we visited Custor from last week and the community council is quite busy in this subject but they are not too happy we have seen no meaningful reduction in the persistent air quality issues in our community and basically the point that we went to was that the recent John Road had a monitor and it's been there for some time and the comment I think that Donald Cameron brought up earlier about North Lanarkshire Council in North Lanarkshire Council at the Civic Centre model a monitor's been there for roughly 20 odd, 25 years but a lot of councils don't have a lot of monitors and basically what I would like to ask are that existing monitor stations in the right place are they collecting the right data on air quality across Scotland and should there actually be more monitors and a broader coverage because I think that some councils only maybe have three or four areas that are being looked at that may not include transport Scotland monitors also That's a question Currently there are 95 automatic monitors within Scotland 95.3 32 councils so that's roughly three per council Well if you want to cut it that way yes but those monitors fulfil two different purposes we have the monitors which are in place as a requirement of the EU directive and then also the monitors which are required to monitor local air quality in the local authority area and the two reporting mechanisms are slightly different so the monitors placed for EU compliance have very strict criteria about where they are placed the local authority then has more discretion about where they place the other individual monitors so there are distinct criteria for citing these and the very expensive installations so the local authority will place a monitor which isn't specified under European criteria in the most appropriate place within its local authority area so there will be limited funds for those monitors Scottish Government does make available each year additional money for the local authorities to if they need further monitoring to install further monitoring or to look at other aspects a local authority can also conduct what's called non-automatic monitoring so this is things such as diffusion tubes which measure the concentration of nitrogen and dark side smaller can be placed on lamppost and there's a huge amount of data from local authorities on this which they then use in their review and assessment of air quality in their area it's really the case that the local authority has to determine where monitoring is required and what sort of extent of monitoring is also required and in most cases CEPA is content with all those that take place it's always a case that more monitoring could be done and we would welcome more monitoring but recognising the practicalities of it I think the local authorities are doing the best job that they can within the financial and practical constraints just before we allow Stephen Thompson can I just clarify something isn't it a case that additional to all of that CEPA has a number of monitors that local authorities can access for temporary monitoring say outside of school but just an additional monitors CEPA has got two effectively trailer monitors which are used for the airborne hazard emergency response capability which we provide for Scotland so this is effectively in response to a Buntsfield kind of large scale industrial incident so those trailers I think are available but it really depends on what uses CEPA may have for them at any particular time whether they're then available for a local authority it's also the case that we've implemented a volcanic emissions network which is an early warning network mostly of rural air quality monitoring sites in the north west of Scotland and the local authority has access to that data as well I thought there was small scale equipment available in addition to that for example for setting up temporary monitoring outside schools CEPA does have various monitoring equipment available I'm not aware of the process because I'm not involved of a local authority requesting that so I can certainly find out about that and report back Before Richard Lyle continues Claudia Beamish wants to comment Thank you, convener I think that in some written evidence from CEPA there was a concern that was raised about the difficulties or potential difficulties of assessing the local authority and the EU directive the compliance with air quality and that they are different and if the data sets are different I'm just wondering how that can be tackled in the future It's the case that the EU directive has very specific reporting requirements which are outlined within the directive itself local air quality management works to fulfil a lot of the requirements of the EU directive but there are slight mismatches between the two while they almost fulfil the same obligations they can't be considered to be directly comparable more than anything it's just a context at which you view the monitoring data from the two regimes so they are broadly comparable but it must be recognised that there are significant differences as well Let's go back to the previous point There's potentially the use of modelling to underpin and maybe even go beyond the power of what site-specific monitoring can achieve I think it was in the Netherlands have taken an approach to use strategic air quality modelling within their legislation to identify whether air quality has been breached or not and we actually do this in Scotland but from a noise perspective the noise mapping that we undertake we don't measure site-specific noise levels to undertake noise mapping we do that through modelling so there's potentially an approach in Scotland that we could adopt in terms of using modelling across the spaces which would potentially be a lower cost than the monitoring but cover a much wider area and there's potentially a plethora of datasets so the robustness of that approach would arguably underpin or support the site-specific monitoring regime that we already have Yes, so basically what I'm finding out of what you're telling the committee is that the monitoring equipment that we have in Scotland the number is woeful basically 95 two major units I don't know many transport Scotland units that are but the next question I'd like to ask is can we be certain that actions that are taken to improve air quality near known hotspots and I'm reminded based on a question made by the convener I'm reminded that as you sometimes you drive along the road you see the DVLA with an environmental officer with someone from Transport Scotland with maybe a policeman stopping cars and checking their volume, quality etc so maybe but I'll only say that occasionally I haven't seen it recently so maybe we need more of that but basically the question is might visible air quality information next to monitoring stations be better at Corsdorffan I asked one of the committee to put their phone near the data and it showed up right away should we not have a sign above that says air quality today is X or the reading is Y so that people can actually see similar to as you go along you have reduced your speed now or you're in a 30 zone you're doing 40 should we not have that on monitors also the woeful number of amount of what monitors that we do have that's probably a matter for the Scottish Government and the local authorities but the one caution I would hazard is that the data which comes from these monitoring stations is always provisional so eventually has to go through a validation and ratification process so the data is potentially subject to change based on that process so that kind of information would be indicative until such time as the data set was ratified I don't know what the practicalities or the costs of that would be I know Seepers has something similar for the bathing waters down the Ayrshire coast to indicate what the water quality is like but I have to confess I'm not aware of how we would do that in practical terms I might be wrong in this but the air quality website has the app for the air quality website but there is access to the monitoring stations across Scotland so it gives the albeit it's not presented at that specific location but there is access to that air quality data so I wonder if that could be moved albeit maybe not in a real time maybe there's a 24-hour delay or a time delay but that data could potentially be but if you watch in the weather forecast on the television they tell you whether in fact to know information so could we not we don't need to have a number could you say air quality good today or air quality bad or whatever Stephen has said that the air quality website run by the Scottish Government does have an air quality forecast which goes for four days hence but due to the variability things like meteorological conditions are subject to change so it should always be just taken as an indicator and that's available in the same location as the individual monitoring data and to go with that there is associated health guidance on the potential health impacts or what members of the population should do where air quality may not be in the highest category so it has to be treated with caution because it is subject to change and air quality forecasting it's not comparable to weather forecasting in the same way we certainly don't want to get the same as China we don't want to be walking about with masks but can I also turn to a subject which I don't think has been covered what further can we do to improve air quality surely it's not just down to transport we also have we still have some factories left in this country that are producing we still have some factories that are belching out stuff out their chimneys and the chimneys are maybe high but you go along in a cold day and you see them belching out so what can we do does SIPA now remind me SIPA is Scottish Environmental Protection Agency that's what you you should be protecting to the population in Scotland from environmental harm so basically that's your job so how are you doing your job and are you checking factories that people are complaining about in particular in industrial estates and do you have concern over sorry to bring it up in my area hopefully not shortly incinerators do you look at these along with the planning situation in order to protect people from other forms of pollution not just transport pollution SIPA does protect an enhanced environment in as far as illegal duties allow us so for example we aren't responsible for local authority so within the terms of what we can do we are protecting and improving the environment and I'd like to think we're doing a very good job of it in relation to specific industrial activities as I mentioned previously each one which falls under the terms of the legislation that's very important to remember there are some activities which don't fall into the legislation and therefore aren't regulated by SIPA we do issue licences, permits product compliance inspections monitoring, we respond to public complaints and concerns but those are all very strictly defined in the terms of the legislation so that covers the largest scale industrial activities waste management activities those kind of things Domestic activities suggested to the committee previously that the growth in wood-burning stoves particularly in urban environments was a contributing factor that was worthy of consideration but nobody could really quantify the scale of that is that something that's on your radar not really know the legislation defines the capacity under which any kind of combustion is regulated by SIPA so where it falls below that level then the regulation and enforcement actually falls to local authorities because it's seen as too small for SIPA to worry about there is currently an EU directive being transposed which is called the medium combustion plant directive which should close up some of the gaps in relation to biomass combustion but very small scale domestic would ultimately be the local authorities responsibility under either the Clean Air Act or the Environmental Protection Act raised that question slightly differently I didn't mean was it your responsibility but was it an issue that you were cited on are you aware that this may be a contributing factor that you might want to consider yes certainly through the local authority review and assessment of air quality in their area there is some quantification of potential for biomass emissions to impact on that area's air quality at the moment I don't think it's anywhere near the scale of say for example London but there is the potential for these things to expand quite considerably in the future so it's definitely something keeping a watching brief on but at the moment it is just there okay thank you it's useful to get that right now David Stewart additional point as far as air quality is concerned the panel may have seen the recent BBC news programme about how toxic is your tar exhaust and it found official estimates of vehicle missions produced under test conditions are not replicated on the road and that obviously affects the London and Paris clean vehicle checker is that any implications for your work it's not from SEPA's perspective no but it will have implications on the CAF's process and also the modelling because obviously we're feeding data into the model based on either real world or laboratory testing so we need to be cognisant of where the disparities may occur but hopefully with the change in the test cycles over the forthcoming years then those gaps should close and we get a greater understanding of the real world driving conditions we've actually spoken to Greater London Authority and Emission Analytics because they are combined creating what's called the EQUA index and that is what the index that you're talking about is the disparity between real world emissions by vehicles that might be very new through to quite old in comparison to what the EQUA standard say on the tin so to speak so I know Greater London Authority are looking at publishing the EQUA index so that individuals can type in their registration number or their vehicle type and get an indication of what for example a seven year old Ford Focus might be in comparison to a brand new Ford Focus we're exploring that just now in terms of what that might bring to Scotland and then there's a second tier on that in terms of the setting of emissions standards within low emission zones the powers that we have or the basis on which we can set those are based on the euro standards which are right across Europe and in an interest of fairness that's how we'd be able to judge basically everyone in this room's car fairly but we're curious about what the EQUA index could bring to the table so there would be a difference between you would do it on what the Ford Focus seven year old lab condition says but the seven year old Ford Focus in reality might have a much higher emission that's the problem so what's the implications for the Glasgow pilot next year that goes ahead at that time the modelling that we're using just now is based on a combination of the traffic data that we've collected and the air quality data that we have already I think there's a need for on-going monitoring to prove that what's achieved in the real world is actually realised in the real world and that will be one of the one of the underpinning tenants of any form of air quality mitigation to prove that it does work in the real world thank you finally in this section Finlay Carson it was interesting what you said about the use of modelling we've now got monitors all over the country for air temperature, fresher, humidity and whatever which can give us an idea of what estimated air pollution is and even things like pollen counts and whatever we have databases that contain lots of information you know what you were back to the information was it aqua you call it I think it's called equa so we also have MOT information which is recorded essentially through a database the automatic number plate recognition systems are relatively cheap they're portable you can move them about and install them at short notice is there any joined up thinking between all these different agencies MOT reports are sent back we've got speed detectors in the cars whatever so you can do far more modelling that would rule out the need for expensive air quality monitors because ultimately we've got computers and lots of data is that not something SEPA, Transport Scotland DVLA and whatever can all work together so that even in the smallest communities so in spring home if the traffic lights are the way the the sequences work or whatever it could be very quick and almost instant to work out what the air quality implications are is that something that the different agencies do to work together I think there's more to be done I think we are the fact that we're putting the lights of cars together several years ago shows that we're starting to work together there's more that can be done I think one of the biggest challenges is to get hold of the big data sets what I mean by that is the data sets that for example Police Scotland hold on terms of AMPR data sets I think they have probably well over 100 million data points and it rightly so it's protected under privacy but could that data be used in a private cleansed form to underpin the modelling I don't know what it potentially could do there's private companies that have data sets the likes of Tom Tom Uber have real time data on terms of the way that their vehicles move for example we had a meeting with Minister for Transport had a meeting with Uber several weeks ago and they had said that they are in theory have the potential to provide that data in a private and confidential manner there's data from bus companies in terms of how they move around the modern ticket machines that are being installed are all GPS based so again there's another form of data that could be used to underpin the modelling so I think in Scotland the big data sets are there there's questions around the privacy but if we could get access to those the granularity in the modelling would be far superior to where it is just now we're also going towards digital cities where we could be potentially looking at congestion charges air quality charges parking charges where everything's done automatically who's leading on this who's pushing it or facilitating the discussions that would see that come about the digital cities and the smart cities a gen is being led by lots of different people that's probably one of the problems some by private companies and some by the public sector there's an interesting organisation based in London called Future Cities Catapult which I saw a presentation from them last week which is looking very much about how we use data and how we can use it much more effectively how we can map it and also some of the ethics around that as well as Steve has already alluded to so I think there's a need to try and see how we can do that I know as part of the planning review Scottish Governments put in place a digital transformation taskforce which involves organisations such as that to look at the data issue and how we can use it much in a much smarter way than we do just now and I personally think it can be game changing Moving on, Claudia Beamish Thank you convener I'd like to focus our minds on tackling air quality hotspots and we had interesting written evidence on a range of measures in relation to prioritising air quality improvement in areas that have had persistent breaches of NO2 limit values I wonder I don't really like the phrase quick wins but in terms of I can't think of a better one in terms of air pollution are there initiatives that could be implemented which aren't necessarily included in the CAFs or in the local air quality action plans and a couple of the suggestions I won't raise things that have come up already today but planting well it has come up in a sense but planting an insulation of green infrastructure in terms of planning particularly and the use of dust suppressants issuing subsidised public travel passes and I understand that a lot of that isn't within the gift of those who are on the panel today but I wonder if you've got any comment on them and also on the setting of expectations for local authorities and planners in terms of taking forward those types of initiatives I think things which you mentioned such as temporary planting and green infrastructure and trying to do that you've seen the rise of pop-up parks for example and things of that in cities I think they're all incredibly useful and they can at least raise the awareness of the issue as well as much as anything as well as have an impact on those things there the one thing I would guard against is thinking that the quick wins are going to be the total solution to this and as I've already said I think one of the things from a planning perspective is that we need to realise that this is going to be in the medium to longer term and we shouldn't lose sight of that we shouldn't get frustrated by the fact that it's going to take a wee bit longer for some of these things to turn around so I would be keen that we also realise that we need to work in a proactive way to have all issues at the start rather than actually deal with them reactively I think it's always going to be the case that you'll never just have one solution to improve an air quality problem and it will always require a suite of measures whether they're hard measures, softer measures and so I don't think the quick wins are there it's also the case that the levels of pollution that we're now trying to get down below the quick wins have gone because it was industrial sources and large scale activities so as Craig says I think it is a medium to long term problem which a multitude of solutions and measures will be required to be implemented to solve the question on expectation I think is a really interesting one because I think when CAFS was launched in 2015 everybody sort of expected there to be an overnight improvement in air quality and that was never going to be the case it's a long term process and had it been easy somebody would have done it before we're bringing together new people around a new table to try and find new solutions for an old problem and I think the expectation management is really important because we need to communicate the medium to long term focus of the strategy and to not tell people that everything will be better overnight because in reality it won't but we're all working towards the common goal over those longer terms I think if we cast our view beyond Scotland and the UK and look at what some of the cities that are aligned to the C40 cities they've taken very aggressive approaches which are immediate, which is banning cars that is one of their solutions maybe just for a day once a day, for a week, once a month that is extremely aggressive but it's effective and it would move people on to the forms of public transport that we want to see in terms of medium terms something that hasn't come up today is the possibility of consolidation hubs David Stewart, my colleague, visited one in Holland for vehicles to larger vehicles to go to and then the goods to be transferred to go into cities has there been any work done on that at all? Yes, it's not me specifically but I know colleagues in Transport Scotland are looking at freight consolidation centres and I've had on-going discussions with Freight Transport Association and Rotology Association about again in several stages bringing the larger vehicles to those locations and then the so-called last mile logistics has been undertaken in lower emission or zero emission vehicles so Transport Scotland are actively looking at that topic Do you perhaps get your colleagues to send us something on that? That would be useful. Finally, Cawina we've had interesting discussions this morning about a joined up approach in terms of some of the written evidence again that we received from councils which was helpful in relation to accountability have there been any discussions or would you envisage that it was appropriate to consider accountability being written into for instance the single outcome agreements or the giant health protection plans in terms again of setting for the future and the expectations? I would certainly like single outcome agreements, local outcome improvement plans, whatever to look at those sort of issues. I think that that is a way to try and get corporate buy-in. We've found from a planning perspective that we tend to be out of the loop on these sort of documents and we've been trying to push in one of the things in the planning review is push for a statutory length between community planning and spatial planning which I think if we can broaden if we want to broaden the number of players involved in that and who have a role to play some of these corporate instruments I think are useful ways to try and do that. A slight problem with SOAs and loypes is that every man and their dog or every woman in their dog is trying to get their priority in there and I know that the people who are trying to draw them up are finding it very difficult to try and prioritise as to what comes first and what comes after that and the quality to be in there. I think I'd echo that. It wasn't by chance that the Minister for Public Health and Sport was included within CAFs. That was very intentional because ultimately I think the place where the dialogue has to go towards is the role of directors of public health and the NHS involved in because frankly we want less people turning up at their front door. So the engagement of those practitioners has a role to play over the coming year or so. Thank you. Richard Lyle finally on this. A quick question. Sorry Mr Applegate I'm going to put you in the spot again. Based on your comments today do you believe that CEPAS powers should be increased in regards to your quality? No, I doubt. I believe that the legal system we have is robust as it currently stands. In the past the local air quality aspect has always been very effective in looking at assessing air quality and identifying where the problems are, the issues have always been about implementing solutions and measures. I think CAFs now provides that bridging point to implement the solutions and I don't actually see that CEPA having additional responsibility would make that necessarily more effective. Thank you. John Scott. Thank you very much. Claudia Beamish has articulated very well the vision for the future which I applaud in terms of integrated healthcare and other things that I've been given a series of questions to ask about the barriers that may be out there certainly still exist. And in particular Aberdeen City Council in their evidence to us said that the barriers to successful delivery include a lack of financial and staffing resources within the partner organisations responsible for implementing the strategy and local buy-in to potentially unpopular measures such as LEZs. Resistance from fleet operators, local businesses, the public and negative press may also cause conflict. Is that a view that you share? If the natural starting point for me is resource, that's real. That was going to be my final question. That is again from a personal point of view, that's very real. So the actions that we want to take forward are somewhat dictated by the people hours that we have to put to those and that's not an excuse, it's just a reality. If the funding is being proposed within the spending review, so we are looking for new monies to be addressed within air quality that weren't there before and I think that's a result of CAFs coming together. So yes, there's a funding pressure there. There is a role for media to play to communicate accurate and concise information. We spend a portion of our time providing press lines that we know are accurate whether they're reported is another matter and then that messaging can somewhat lead to people being uninformed or misinformed so there's a responsibility within media to make sure that that information is put across concisely. So yeah, I would agree with all those three points. I'm not really trying to tempt you into agreeing with things that you don't want to but McGill Buses stated that Glasgow wants what London has but does not want to do what London has had to do to get it. Seems impossible to let a real world statement. Are we trying to do this on the cheap here in Scotland? That's certainly what McGill Buses appeared to imply from their evidence. Would you agree with that statement? It's essentially further to the funding issue. I think that funding is essential. Yeah. It's black and white funding is essential and I would agree with the roles that the lights of McGill have said in their evidence that without appropriate funding we will not be in a place where we want to be. That requires hard cash and hard investment along with behaviour change as well. If I could perhaps come in on the resourcing side, I know that planners are an end-all and they play an important role but we said in our evidence that resourcing is a key issue and we've done work to show that between 2009 and 2015 we've lost 23% of planners in local authorities so if there's a job for planners to work on this in terms of development planning and development management there's less of them to do it they're focusing more on the statutory functions which they have to do which is processing planning applications and publishing development plans it sometimes doesn't allow for the creativity and the bits around the edges and talking to your quality colleagues which they perhaps should be but they can't do that because they're faced with three lists around resourcing. I lack of planners and I lack of money not a good combination. Do you see other barriers as well just from the point of view of being negative but if there are problems to be solved it's better that we as the committee also know about them or barriers that need to be overcome so if there are other things that occur to you that you can articulate easily I think in the resourcing side there's three bits, there's a lack of people in bodies as I've said there's a lack of budget as well we've seen a planning service that's £40 million taken out of it over that 2010 to 2015 period as well but there's also a need to grow expertise in this and as I've said already we've tried to do that with some limited resources which we have other disciplines and professions are trying to do that as well but it's about trying to break down those silo barriers and trying to make sure that people know how they can work with others and that's a big issue for us all I think we're getting there with it, absolutely but sometimes the capacity building element is something which is put to the bottom of the pile because it can often be the key game changer I think as well it's the case that what Caps has tried to do is look at the potential multiple benefits that are available and where another policy area of say for example another source of funding may have positive impacts on air quality but it's not immediately apparent to tease that out and try to embed air quality into other non-traditional areas so to almost try to piggyback on as many relevant policy areas as possible recognising that air quality may not be a major consideration but there could be demonstrable benefits to air quality and I think that's a really positive aspect of Caps is trying to identify co and multiple benefits Indeed, I mean another area where there's a sort of conflict of interest within the government and I understand one is the need to build new houses which we all aspire to and the figure used to be 35,000 a year that's required in Scotland and I'm no longer certain what that is but I know we're not delivering on our housing targets but if we were able to deliver on the housing targets then and those are largely going to be not even in our towns but largely in our city areas where the air pollution is already high and the government is seeking to improve air quality but another part of the government is seeking to build more houses in our city areas which will add to the problem of course offset against that is the potential for electric cars coming and much more into use is that going to be sufficient to offset that and rise in air pollution around city areas with house building I think there's a couple of elements that come to mind immediately the first is to make sure that the charging infrastructure is in place so when new developments are being designed not when they're being built when they're being designed at the front end the charging infrastructure is in place for every single property because we are looking at a game changing approach to how we move around our spaces so I'd like to see new developments having that as a absolute rather than as an add-on or as a nice to have the second part I know from speaking to the bus sector have wanting to be involved in dialogue around the transport design of developments from the outset so that there is an economical reason for a bus route to move through that development rather than taking a loop and essentially doubling back on themselves so that's just one example that springs to mind about bus operators rightly wanting to make a profit and having an economical route but perhaps new developments being designed in a way that are causing unintentionally a loop back on a bus operator to essentially double their journey so there's some relatively easy wins in there that can be done at the front end of design I think you're right in so far as certainly for the planners I've got lots of different priorities chucked at them and I've got to try and make it all work and that's not always easy and that's part of the job I think for me if you want to try and increase the housing stock of those at the same time not impacting on air quality the key is getting houses in the right location so they've got the right connections so they minimise car use they don't add to it in the first place as well I think we can also look at a range of different things like the scale of developments the range of uses within that development as well so you don't have to travel to get to different things but the design can have an impact on things as well the materials which we use as we've talked to on already as well the siting, the spaces between buildings and how they can be used to try and soak up if that's the right term some of the air quality issues which you have so there are lots of different priorities which planners face housing is the one getting thrown on our face just now to be honest with you we're trying our best to do that but our job is to try and come up with some form of solution which makes sure that what we do build and which actually has positive impacts rather than negative impacts another conflict is the one that Graham Day has already touched on is the development of biomass plants the development of wood burning wood burning stoves in urban areas which again is not reducing or improving air quality but rather reducing it and that's another part of government that's trying to achieve one thing and a different part although perhaps in the same office in government but not withstanding people with two different objectives when they're both conflicting and I think that would you suggest that these sort of conflicts where they occur should be more thought through it used to be called joined up thinking but never an expression that I liked in the past but nonetheless has a point should there be more of that on several occasions with such government officials and ministers the fact that if you look at the programme for government there are about 14 bills in it and for things like air quality and for planning we've got a planning bill, we've got a transport bill we've got a climate change bill it's an islands bill I think there's a need to try and make sure that all these bills when they become axe are thought through and there is some conversation to make sure they don't contradict one another and support one another as well I have been told that happens I hope that that will be the case when we see the bills go through parliamentary sessions as it comes up Thank you very much Emma Harper did you wish to come in on similar to what John Scott talked about I was reading about research related to air quality and people in Scotland don't realise that air quality does impact their health we've got like one person every five minutes dying of a lung condition so I'm just curious about research that would be conducted into promoting knowledge around lung health and who would conduct research and who would fund it obviously I think British Heart Foundation spent 6.9 million for medical research in 2015 and came up with some data I don't think the research itself is the issue, I think we've probably got the evidence there it's the communicating articulation of that research and we perhaps have to get better at that I think there's a big part where all this is behaviour change and what we've been talking about is almost like the private sector and public sector changing their behaviour but there's a responsibility on individuals and people like ourselves to think about how we change our behaviour do we need to jump into a car to go to the shops and walk in there as well so there's something that might be trying to push that to individuals that they have some responsibility in taking this forward as much as waiting for government or someone else to do it for them The data is strong in terms of the published research already that individual studies are grouped together in terms of cumulative effect that understand is that health protection Scotland are aware of that research and that's what is used in relation to ministers so the evidence is there as Craig says it's about communicating that in a sensible non-technical language to everyone in Scotland so that they make the right choices particularly how they travel and move between their homes and work or wherever they have to go so it's about communicating that in a simple non-technical language and I guess the one that springs to mind immediately what is it about attributable deaths it's a very technical medical based language so how do you distill that down into something that makes sense to the layperson Finally I think Laura Croskell Thanks convener, just as we draw this session to a close I'm just trying to get clear something in my own mind Graham Applegate you said earlier on in the session that you're very confident that we'll meet legal compliance by 2020 I think Stephen Thompson you said that you're very confident that the Government will meet its walking and cycling targets 10% by 2020 but at the same time throughout this session this morning you've said we need to take a longer view we need to manage expectations it's all about medium to long term action and cultural change how do you square those two are we going to meet targets or not or actually is now the time for you to manage expectations I think I was specifically talking about the EU legal targets the domestic targets are probably the longer term aspiration and because the two systems run together but are different then we have to make that separation so looking at the EU aspect first I do think that we will be compliant in those three areas and the likelihood is Glasgow may also be compliant by 2020 the AQMA aspect from the domestic legislation will be a longer term approach because it's far more localised air quality problems and the aspiration of CAFs is to remove all of these air quality management areas over time we have a further issue arising in with the adoption of the PM 2.5 objective for 2020 that's likely to create more air quality management areas because it will find more problems so that will always be a movable feast and all the work of CAFs or in local air quality management should ultimately arrive in all of those air quality management areas being removed so I just think the distinction between the two regulatory regimes needs to be clarified but I'm definitely hopeful that the EU compliance will be achieved as a nitrous oxide the NOx you believe will be compliant the NO2 I think we will be compliant and if we aren't compliant it won't be very far after 2020 when compliance is achieved I think my mind goes back to the medical evidence that there's no safe limit for a particular matter so even if we're achieving the targets in the short term those targets could well be tightened and tightened again so that the actions that we're looking at in the medium to long term will have half an eye on where their quality needs to be in terms of the links to there being no safe level on a particular matter the short term actions I guess the word has been used several times today about the cumulative effect so it's moving all of those short term actions to support achievement of the medium and longer term aspirations but in terms of your point about walking and cycling I mean we're at 2% of journeys so at the moment you think we're going to get to 10% by 2020 That's what my colleagues in Transport Scotland have I haven't read anything other than that that says that that's the journey that's what they're on Can I come in there? My heart honours the chair of the National Walking Strategy Implementation Forum I think we're seeing walkings and I'm not an upward trajectory and I think with the plan the strategy now in place will certainly get some benefits from that as well I think the increase in the active travel budget will hopefully go some way to try to do that as well and if we can build upon that I'm hopeful we will meet your targets Right, thank you Can I thank all three of you for the evidence given this morning I think it's been very very helpful to the committee on its consideration and can I also remind you to submit any written follow-up evidence that you're undertaking to submit because I think there's some things that we need to have a look at Again, thank you for that At its next meeting on 17 November the committee will continue to take evidence as part of this inquiry into air quality in Scotland and as agreed earlier we'll now move into private session and I ask that the public gallery be cleared as the public part of the meeting is now closed Thank you