Wiltshire Council (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.

Source: DEFRA

• There are 90 river water bodies within Wiltshire. Our latest assessment of these classified 2.2% as bad, 18.9% as poor, 55.6% as moderate and 23.3% as good.

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

• 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  

• Land use within Wiltshire County area, is predominantly green space  All the district councils within Somerset, are predominantly green space. Swindon Council is slightly less different, with a little less green space, and slightly more garden area, due to the nature of the council boundaries.

• The South West average for green space is 90%, and the average in England is 87%.

• For detailed information to the former district level, please see their individual pages.

• 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. 

• There are no County Summaries. Please see district pages for their report.   

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 Wiltshire Council, there is a significant area of 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.

Source: Environment Agency

• The map below shows the soils present within Wiltshire. In a broad landscape context Wiltshire is dominated by shallow chalk and limestone soils with a band of clay rich heavy soils in the north. 
• Soil type is a major factor in determining the type of agriculture that can be supported. Generally light textured soils support cereals and horticulture while shallow chalk limestone soils support grazing and cereals. Clay rich heavy soils often underlie dairy pasture. Medium textured soils can support both arable and livestock farming.
• The latest (2010) DEFRA agricultural census data for Wiltshire indicates75 927ha of farmed land 260 470ha of farmed land supports over 2200 farms of which 700 are greater than 100ha in size. 18% of this farmed area is wheat - the dominant arable crop. 35% of the farmed land is permanent grass supporting over 65,000 dairy cattle, about 9% of the total dairy herd in the South West.

Source: DEFRA

• For the period April 2005-March 2010 inc, there was 1 incident of major impact to water within Wiltshire County Council area.

• In addition there were 6 incidents of significant impact to air, 5 incidents of significant impact to both land and water, 29 incidents of significant impact to water, and a further 13 incidents of significant impact to land.

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

• For the same period, there were 4 incidents of significant impact to land, and a further 2 incidents to water.

Source : Environment Agency

• During 2009/10 there were 1436 reported incidents of flytipping in Wiltshire, the eight highest for a district or unitary authority in the region. This was a 15% increase from 1254 incidents in 2008/09. There were 2 prosecutions for flytipping, both 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.

• 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. 

• Wiltshire had the seventh  highest amount of residual waste in the South West with 645.68 kg/household.       

• There is no information to the former district council areas.

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

• Wiltshire County Council in 2009/10 against the other South West Councils, was in the top half of the recycling league table with 41.42%. 

• 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%.

• 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. 

• Wiltshire County Council landfilled 33,785 tonnes of waste (47.53%). This was the fourth lowest percentage to be landfilled. However this equated to 116,350 tonnes which was the fifth highest in the South West in terms of tonnes landfilled.