LGC Award for Medium Team of the Year: Merton LBC's Air quality team

their out-of-the-box thinking and commitment to making a difference to public health is truly inspiring and was reflected in their approach to securing funding. It is clear that this project is not only a winner but also has the potential to be adopted elsewhere, bringing about real and tangible changes in our communities.

The team was formed as part of a tri-borough shared service (Regulatory Services Partnership) of Wandsworth, Richmond and Merton (who host the service). It has been innovative in its approach, bringing together experts and regulators with a passion for tackling pollution. The team has successfully tapped into the resilience offered by funding open to authorities operating over a significant geographic area in London. 

Over time the team gained a reputation as innovators, willing to go beyond the statutory function, leading the air quality agenda. The team has a long list of innovative projects that each tackle those difficult regulatory gaps, as well as the softer awareness-raising and education. As the reputation has grown this has attracted some of the best staff in London, as well as securing grants, innovate and external funding.  

The overall objective of the team was to make a real difference to public health, and where possible deliver actual tangible reductions in pollution. There are so many projects we have delivered over the years from innovative monitoring, working with waste sites to reduce pollution, working on health and Air Quality, the list is endless. 

The project is so successful the team has been sponsored to look at other industries in London to see if the same scheme can be applied including waste sites, roadworks and events.

As this was a world first, we had to start from scratch, the planning conditions needed to be challenging, but realistic, all boroughs needed to impose a set of standard conditions and the industry needed to be geared up for the challenge and changes. 

The project has now settled down and the various industry stakeholders are engaged, and have proven to be willing to play their part in the Air Quality Agenda. This has been perhaps the most surprising part, the industry want to do their best, but want guidance, consistency, early warning and a level playing field. 

It's largely gone unnoticed by residents, but the reduction in pollution and the changes to sites have been dramatic, including the potential impact on workers and residents that have to live next door to large redevelopments over many years. We’ve forged strong working partnership with industry, sharing best practice and giving practical help and advice.

As a first of its kind we were told, by our own industry, that this would never be deliverable and would require changes in the law. That has not proven to be be the case. 

By adopting practical, achievable standards, and by taking industry on the journey, we are able to show a real reduction in pollution across London. 

We hope that this shows that with effort, the right people and the right approach, councils can make a real difference. 

We have a scheme that is now mature, tested and shown to be working, so it is somewhat surprising that no other city has adopted the same scheme. We are more than happy to talk to or invite any council to see our work in action and how this could benefit them.

There are many ways in which delivery may have been adapted including coordinating with all boroughs, comms and messaging to name a few. However, with the results achieved it is hard to say that there was any element we would fundamentally change in retrospect. 

It’s been an interesting learning experience and has forged a strong resilient team. If we had foreseen the success, some early discussions around longer-term budget would have been valuable, although it would have been hard to predict the protracted inflation impact and cost to the projects. We have tried successfully between the RSP and our sponsor (GLA) not to pass this on to partner boroughs.

Outside the ULEZ, this has been probably the most effective Air Quality project in the country. We count our pollution savings in tonnes.

 It has changed the construction fleet in London and we can now boast to have the cleanest fleet of any major city in the world. If you reduce pollution, you can also calculate the health saving benefit. 

This same approach is starting to be applied to other industries in London and to city Mayors across the UK, we say you too can deliver a similar scheme and the RSP will help you in this.