Liverpool City Region Air Quality Website and Educational Resources

DO NOT CONTACT THE BUYER DIRECTLY. ALL COMMUNICATION SENT DIRECTLY TO THE BUYER WILL NOT BE RESPONDED TO. ALL COMMUNICATION IN RELATION TO THIS OPPORTUNITY MUST BE SENT DIRECTLY THROUGH THE CHEST MESSAGING SYSTEM.

A total of 6 Local Authorities make up the Liverpool City Region (LCR); Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens, and Wirral with a total population of 1.5 million. Across the LCR, Defra’s national air quality assessment, as reported to the EU Commission, has identified and/or projected an exceedance of the annual mean for Nitrogen Dioxide – 40ug/m3; and the LCR has numerous declared Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs).

‘Access to information is essential to enable the public to make informed choices to help tackle the sources of, and to avoid exposure to, air pollution’ (UK Plan for tackling roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations, Detailed Plan, DEFRA, 2017).

Section 5.6 of the DEFRA detailed air quality plan, outlines that local authorities should work closely with residents to ensure that measure to improve air quality do not impact adversely on them. It is recognised by the LCR that Local authorities need a communication tool to enable them to engage with local communities on a large scale, the proposal is to generate awareness and engagement with the public through the creation of an Air Quality website for the Liverpool City Region with the ultimate aim of influencing the behaviours that affect air quality.

At present each local authority has its own air quality pages, hosted within the Council webpages and these vary in terms of design, amount of information and type of content. We are looking to create a stand-alone website which will have content which is pertinent to all the Local Authorities within the LCR.

As this is a project funded by the DEFRA air quality grant we have certain criteria to meet which includes an evaluation of the project and the improvements in public awareness/perception and indicative improvements in air quality. A baseline setting exercise will be undertaken before the website goes live to ascertain the levels of knowledge and awareness as well as hits on current council AQ pages, the data for this will be collated by council officers, with liaison from the appointed consultant.

At the core of the project will be an LCR air quality web based platform which aims to provide a ‘one-stop shop’ for air quality within the LCR. The website will be clear and simple to use and targeted at raising public awareness of air quality and influencing their behaviour. The project aims to engage the public within the LCR and educate them on air quality in the local area, as well as generating publicity for new initiatives, grants and incentives. There are many existing great projects and initiatives which the public are not aware of or are not utilised to their full capacity. The website will be an easy to use and understand platform for the general public and will provide a clear and consistent message within the LCR.

The front facing webpage will be used to display news, links to initiatives, pages for community groups, Twitter and Facebook feeds, links to local authority data, Air Quality Management Areas, Annual Screening Reports, Action Plans, shared guidance and to promote relevant local and national projects to improve air quality.

A substantial element of the web platform will be dedicated to providing educational resources for primary and secondary schools to utilise. The resources will focus on all types of pollution, not just traffic, with the aim of making children more aware of how their actions can impact on the air that they breathe. This will be designed so that teachers can utilise the resources and will be aligned with objectives within the national curriculum. The content should be fun and interactive, providing games and activities aimed a primary and secondary school children. If a different platform, such as an app, is more appropriate to deliver the content, then this should be incorporated within the bid.

The website will be promoted to teachers and the local education authority through a series of promotional events, demonstrating the website. Attendance at these events should be within the brief.

It is acknowledged by DEFRA that public engagement is key to improving air quality, however, whilst researching this project it has become apparent that there is limited detailed information available on the benefits of engagement projects. This project aims to have discrete and relevant key performance indicators that can be tracked both during and after the project. A key element of the project is the evaluation of the benefits of the project after year 1 and a report detailing these findings.

The details and outcomes of the project should be disseminated to other LAs and AQ colleagues through presentations at conferences such as IAPSC and Air Quality Conference.

The project is funded through the DEFRA air quality grant and has a maximum budget of £60,000 to include inception and update meetings with stakeholders, baseline setting exercise, website/ app design for public facing and educational pages, web hosting, training, maintenance, input into promotional and social media campaign (working with in-house design team), presentation at 2 promotional events, dissemination and evaluation.