North Cornwall (Local Environment Profiles 2011)

• North Cornwall has one area of poor air quality, and one designated Air Quality Management Areas – Bodmin town centre

• Please click here for a map of the area 

Source: DEFRA

• There are 80 river water bodies within North Cornwall. Our latest assessment of these classified 5% as poor, 60% as moderate and 10% 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: impacted fish communities, physical modifications, and high levels of copper, phosphate and zinc.

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  

• North Cornwall has the largest district authority area in the South West, with just over 1,308,000 m2 within its realm, with over 33% of the 3,606,000 m2 total area of Cornwall. 

• The largest proportion of land in North Cornwall is classified as green space, accounting for 1,137,000 m2 or 94% of its total area.  This is higher than the county average of 90.5% and 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 are two in the former North Cornwall area - one relating to the Tamar River Catchment, and one on the Camel River.
• The Tamar and Tavy covers an area of 1,357km2.
• The Camel covers an area of 329km2.

Source: Environment Agency

• A map showing soil types in the former North Cornwall District Council
• In a broad landscape context the former North Cornwall District Council area has a varied range of soil types. Over half are medium textured soils with a large area of clay rich heavy soils in the north east of the area. Peaty and light textured soils are found in the wetter upland areas of Bodmin Moor.

• Soil type is a major factor in determining the type of agriculture carried out. Medium textured soils support mixed farming, upland areas livestock while the clay rich heavy soils underlie the rich pastureland for dairying.

• The latest detailed DEFRA data (2007) on the number of holdings (farm types) within North Cornwall  shows over 55% of farms support grazing (sheep and beef) with 14% dairy,11% mixed farming and only 4% horticulture.

Source: DEFRA

• For the period April 2005-March 2010 inc, there were 4 incidents of major impact to water in North Cornwall. In addition there 2 incidents of significant impact to land, and 16 incidents of significant impact to water.

• For the period April 2010- March 2011 inc, there were 2 incidents of major impact to water in North Cornwall. For the same period, there were 8 incidents of significant impact to water.

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. 

• 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%.

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

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.