Swindon (Local Environment Profile 2011)

• There are five Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) in Wiltshire. This was the third highest reported for a unitary/county authority in the South West. The highest number were in the former Salisbury District with three areas.

• Swindon has no area designated as an AQMA at this time.

Source: DEFRA

• There are 11 river water bodies within Swindon. Our latest assessment of these classified 18.2% as poor, 63.6% as moderate and 18.2% as good.

• The main reasons for less than good status include high levels of phosphate and Tributyltin compounds.

• 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  

• In 2005 both the South West Region and the UK, the largest landuse came from Greenspace with 90.7% and 87.5% respectively. The next largest area of land cover came in the form of domestic gardens with 3.07% in the South West, and 4.3% for the UK average.

• In Swindon  the two largest landuses are the same, however domestic gardens is significantly higher with 7.3% and greenspace is lower with 80.6%.

• 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.    

Source : Keep Britain Tidy 

• 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 Swindon Council, the whole area is under NVZ which includes areas 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 Catchment Sensitive Farming project which overlaps into the Swindon area. This is the Hampshire Avon catchment, which covers an area of 1,809km2. 

Source: Environment Agency

• For the period April 2005 - March 2010 inclusive, there were no incidents of major impact to land, air or water in Swindon. However there were 6 incidents of significant impact to water, and a further incident of significant impact to land and water.

• For the period April 2010 - March 2011 inclusive, there were no incidents of major impact to air, land or water in Swindon. There was only 1 incident, which was of significant impact to land for the same period.

Source: Environment Agency

• During 2009/10 there were 2120 reported incidents of flytipping in Swindon, the fourth highest for a district or unitary authority in the region. This was a slight decrease from 2142 incidents in 2008/09. There were 7 prosecutions for flytipping, all of which had successful outcomes.
  
  

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.

• Swindon Borough Council was not in the top ten lowest producers of residual waste produced however were doing well in the bottom half of the league table in the South West, with 505.23 kg/household.

• 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.    
  

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

• Swindon Borough Council in 2009/10 had the eighth highest amount of recycling in the South West with 47.54%

• 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  

• Swindon Borough Council landfilled 49,191 tonnes, which was the fourth lowest amount of tonnes landfilled in the South West. This  was also the sixth lowest percentage landfilled (50.90%) 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.