Penwith (Local Environment Profiles 2011)

• Penwith had no areas of poor air quality or areas designated as Air Quality Management Areas.

Source: DEFRA

• There are 30 river water bodies within Penwith. Our latest assessment of these classified 3.4% as poor, 83.3% as moderate and 13.3% as good.

• This compares with 267 river water bodies in Cornwall as a whole with 1.5% classified as bad, 4.5% as poor, 63.7% as moderate and 30.3% as good.

• The main reasons for less than good status include: high levels of copper and zinc, physical modifications, impacted invertebrate and fish communities and high levels of phosphate.

For information on the activities taking place to help your local river improve, please see the Earth Chattering pages for an interactive map and much more information.

Please note - Water bodies do not fit exactly within local authority boundaries. The figures have been derived from those water bodies whose centres are within the district in question. If all water bodies within a district had been included, double accounting would have taken place. Some water bodies have yet to be classified. For the purpose of this exercise, these have been removed from the figures published.

Source : Environment Agency  

• Penwith is the smallest district authority area in the South West, with just over 307,000 m2 within its realm, with just 9% of the 3,606,000 m2 total area of Cornwall. 

• The largest proportion of land in Penwith is classified as green space, accounting for 278,000 m2 or 91% of its total area.  This is just higher than the county average of 90.5% and equal to the regional average of 91%.

Source : Communities and Local Government

• The ninth Local Environmental Quality Survey conducted by Keep Britain Tidy, was carried out between April 2009 and March 2010. The Summary Report key messages included:

~ Overall Standards within England remain the same as last year, with no change in the Cleansing Index score, which is 76, out of a possible 100.

~ 63% of standards for all LEQ indicators were either Good or Satisfactory.
The South East joins the South West as top performing region overall, for the first time this year.

~ The South West has been either the top performing region or joint top performing region since the 2007/08 Survey. 

The survey carried out between April 2006 -March 2007, is available down to Local Authority Level, please click here for the details.

• Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZs) are areas of land that drain into waters polluted by nitrates, such that the ecosystem is at risk of being disturbed, or the water is likely to exceed 50 milligrams of nitrate in each litre.

• Within Cornwall Council, there are a number of areas of NVZ covering part of council area which includes an area of deferred slurry storage.

• NVZ regulations come fully into force on 1 Jan 2012, except in deferred Slurry storage areas which have until 1 Jan 2013.

• For more information on NVZ, please see Environment Agency pages.

• For detailed maps relating to NVZ areas, please see source pages.

Source:Environment Agency

• Catchment Sensitive Farming (CSF) gives advice on dealing with diffuse pollution from agriculture and the impact on water courses. 
• CSF is a voluntary initiative, where as NVZs is a statutory obligation. CSF looks at : best practice on manure and pesticide usage; Promoting good soil structure; protecting watercourses from run-off and best practice on stock management.
• There is one called the West Cornwall Catchments, which covers a small area of Penwith. The total area of the West Cornwall Catchments is 864kM.    

• A map showing the soil types within the former Penwith District Council Area.

• In a broad landscape context the former Penwith District Council area is dominated by two major soil types. Over half the soils are peaty and light textured in high rainfall and/or upland areas; the bulk of the remaining soils are medium textured. There are pockets of semi-natural habitats based on blown sands such as the large coastal dune system north of Hayle and a small strip of light heavily improved soils in the coastal margins of Marazion Bay colloquially known as the Golden Mile.

• Soil type is a major factor in determining the type of agriculture that can be practiced, medium textured soils support mixed farming. The upland areas support livestock while the soils of the Golden Mile are used to grow the famed Cornish early potatoes and cauliflowers.

• The latest detailed DEFRA data (2007) on the number of holdings (farm types) within Penwith shows over 40% of farms support grazing (sheep and beef), 23% horticulture and 10% mixed farming. DEFRA data on dairy farm numbers is suppressed for commercial confidentiality.

Source : DEFRA

• For the period April 2005- March 2010 inc, there were no incidents of major impact to land, air or water in Penwith. For the same period, there were 2 incidents of significant impact to water, 1 incident of significant impact  to land and air, and 1 of significant impact to land only.

• For the period April 2010- March 2011 inc, there were no incidents of major or significant impact to land, air or water in Penwith. 

Source : Environment Agency

• During 2009/10 there were 2651 reported incidents of flytipping in Cornwall, the third highest for a district or unitary authority in the region. This was a 16% fall from the 3149 incidents in 2008/09 (data from all former districts combined).

• There were 3 prosecutions for flytipping, all of which had successful outcomes.

Source : DEFRA

Please note: incidents of fly tipping are reported differently by each council. One may log black bin bags out on an incorrect day as a fly tipping incident where another council do not log this. Please be aware of these reporting discrepancies on Flycapture when looking at the data in comparison to other councils.

• Cornwall Council  had the third highest amount of residual waste in the South West with 693.85 kg/household. There is no information to the former district council areas.

• In 2009/10, South Hams had the lowest level of residual waste in the South West with 341.04kg/household. The highest in the South West was Isles of Scilly Council with 1,452kg/household. 

• Recycling and composting has increased significantly in the South West, from 14.9% in 2000 / 2001 to 43.5% in 2009 / 2010.

• Cornwall County Council in 2009/10 against the other South West Councils, was in the bottom half of the recycling league table with 36.83%.  There is no information to the former district authorities.

• The highest rate of recycling in the SW was Cotswold District Council with 60.4%,  and the lowest rate in the SW was Isles of Scilly with 18.9%.

Source : DEFRA  

• Cornwall landfilled 187,527 tonnes, which was the second highest amount of tonnes landfilled in the South West. This was also the second highest percentage landfilled (61.91%) in the South West.

• Bournemouth Borough Council landfilled the least percentage waste in 2009/10 (37.8%). Plymouth City Council landfilled the largest percentage of waste in 2009/10 (64%).  Devon County Council however landfilled the largest amount in tonnes with 194,720 tonnes. 

Source : Environment Agency