Brighton and Hove City Council is planning a crackdown in smoke control areas as wood-burners become more popular although they may not be the main cause of complaints.
People were warned that even the most eco-friendly wood-burning stove would emit six times as many harmful airborne particles every hour as some types of lorry.
A report to the council’s Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee said that most complaints about smoke over the past five years related to bonfires or static diesel generators.
Out of just over 500 complaints, only 12 related to “smoke from a domestic chimney”.
The committee backed a programme to raise awareness in the hope of reducing the number of people burning solid fuels in their homes.
And members of the committee shared their concerns that people with wood-burning stoves were unaware of the potential health risks.
When the committee met at Hove Town Hall yesterday (Tuesday 1 October), members were told that more enforcement could be expected in the existing smoke control areas.
And officials were setting up a real-time air quality monitoring network across Brighton and Hove which was due to go live this month.
The council’s interim head of safer communities, Jim Whitelegg, told members that the council was raising awareness using information provided by the government while also looking at what other councils had done, including Bristol.
Mr Whitelegg said: “What we hope is that it will raise awareness and people will get in touch with us if they have issues around smoke control
“We’ll receive more inquiries and complaints and we can target that enforcement appropriately as well as using the additional data that has been put in place for monitoring.”
Community and voluntary sector representative Mark Strong said that toxins were entering the atmosphere even when approved logs were used in wood-burning stoves.
Mr Strong said: “These still produce high levels of toxic emissions within the home. They’re higher than recommended – even the ones people think are safe.
“One of the issues is people think they are not emitting smoke, they’re not breaking those rules, but they are still at risk from a health point of view.”
Labour councillor Tim Rowkins, the council’s cabinet member for the environment and net zero, said that wood-burners affected public health and there would be more focus on enforcement in the existing smoke control areas.
Five smoke control areas cover a continuous stretch from Brighton seafront up to Bevendean, taking in the Seven Dials, the North Laine, Preston Circus, Hanover and Queen’s Park.
The smoke control areas also cover Kingscliff, Round Hill and up Lewes Road and Upper Lewes Road, including the Bear Road area, formerly home to Bevendean Hospital which catered for patients with respiratory conditions.
Councillor Rowkins said that the council had not had a history of enforcing the smoke control areas and the focus would now be to make them meaningful.
A report to the committee said: “The council has a range of enforcement options, potentially including fixed penalty notices, abatement notices and prosecution.
“However, there is a hierarchy of enforcement and the first step, unless immediate action is necessary and proportionate, will be to provide advice and then a warning to businesses or residents.
“To date, fixed penalty notices have not been served or further enforcement measures taken as in the majority of cases there can be an informal resolution by advice and negotiation.”
Councillor Rowkins said: “Even compliant appliances burning solid fuel still release pollutants and particulate pollution.
“The message here is it’s best not to burn, whether or not you’re in a smoke control area, no matter what your appliance is, so hopefully that message will sink in across the city.”
Brighton and Hove Independent councillor Bridget Fishleigh said that a developer had wanted to include wood-burning stoves in Allingham Place, a new estate in Rottingdean, but the proposal was rejected.
Councillor Fishleigh said: “In our West Saltdean neighbourhood plan, we’ve put a policy in it, associated with planning for new-build homes with coal or wood fireplaces. They would be rejected. Maybe we’ll be the first area to have that.”
Conservative councillor Ivan Lyons raised concerns about rogue log sellers because the report to the committee said that there were “no identified dedicated wood or solid fuel sellers” in Brighton and Hove.
Councillor Lyons said: “At this time of year, we do see rogue announcements on roundabouts just outside Brighton for wood logs, etc.
“They have been reported last year but, in my experience, these signs stay up for weeks and weeks. I get responses from relevant officers saying they are either too high or they will be removed. As soon as these rogue signs go up, they should be taken down swiftly.”
Labour councillor Amanda Evans, who chairs the committee, agreed, saying: “I would have thought those kind of informal signs would be much more likely to be selling dodgy elm which would not be suitable.”
The report said: “Sales of log wood for fires and stoves in residential properties continue to present a significant risk in terms of the spread and impacts of elm disease to a large proportion of the council’s tree stock.
“Elm logs are imported into the city then sold and distributed as firewood, causing elm disease outbreaks and tree loss as a result of the disease-carrying elm bark beetle using the logs as habitat and with the potential to reproduce in significant numbers on very little material.”
How about setting up a charity to recycle wood so it won’t get burned? Oh hang on…!
You mean like a ‘Pete West Pension Fund’ ?
All part of the bloody plan isn’t it. Depressingly predictable. Banning wood burning stoves will go hand in hand with forcing people to have heat pumps. Just you watch what they do.
The headline got me thinking they were about to enforce the smoking ban that’s been around for 18 years or so, but no so we still have to put up with smoking in shopping arcades and some pubs.
Heating ban sponsored by Electric companies and the nut zero brigade. It was not so long ago that firewood was lauded as a green fuel due to the short carbon chain. I have to also ask if the air pollution is only measured on the 15 non windy days of the year in Brighton
Electric companies – the nut zero brigade – wood grows fast than coal is made or what other excuses you want to use. The fact is burning wood or coal in your home is polluting/ slowly killing you your family, neighbour’s and environment. Far more than using a boiler to heat your home.
Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to harm your self the area you live in ? No matter how is promoting the message.
The universe in its entirety is slowly heading towards an entropic heat death. One has to be more accepting of these things.
Attics and Chris we can all play are part to help or destroy. Looking to blame or suggest who is worst is not the solution. Again why would want to excuse your self from harming your self and neighbourhood for a cosy ethic?
Given all the council’s apparent time, effort and resource being put into this, has any cost – benefit analysis been carried out? I have to say that I have not seen scores of people keeling over in the notorious ‘Brighton smog’.
It would be interesting to see the forecasted change in air quality this will achieve compared to, say, the abandonment of the VG3 project. In fact it would be interesting to see any reliably collected data on the air quality in the different parts of the city that this latest council crusade is based upon.
I am offshore fishing quite frequently, and there is a distinct yellow smog that hangs over the city.
Can’t see it up close, but it’s definitely here.
It is a feature of modern life that minority views can, through the use of social media make an issue appear much greater than it is. They are in effect “honey traps” as all it takes is for few unsuspecting politicians or councilors to hitch their wagons and off we go down a road of more meaningless restrictions/regulation/laws. Cherry picking dubious research and quoting it is another feature of this phenomenon. Somehow the idea of “fact checking” get missed or skewed in the rush to virtue.
We already have smoke free areas. In these is it legal to burn smokeless coal (the only type available now anyway) and DEFRA approved log burners using seasoned or kiln-dried logs only. It is also now illegal to offer for sale normal coal or unseasoned/ un-dried logs.
It is permitted to generate some smoke while lighting your coal fore or log burner.
Smokeless areas were introduced 60-70 years ago as a reaction to burning ordinary coal, at a time when most people used it as their primary source of heating, businesses used it to power their factories and it was designed to force people and companies to use smokeless coal or alternatives, to reduce the chances of a dangerous smog forming, which required a fog, and very still air. At that time gas, oil and electricity was much cheaper and convenient so there was a return on investing in the devices needed for these new fuels.
So the only time a smokeless zone enforcement notice or penalty can be issued is if people are burning old-fashioned coal or green wood inside their home. It is also not permitted to burn noxious waste in your garden (or fireplace/log burner)
Elm disease control – just how many elm trees are left outside of Brighton to provide these sources of infection ? and what has the effects of cutting council services been on our own elm conservation ? We have a council that cannot empty drains/gullies or fix potholes, despite having a budget to do so – where is elm conservation in this ? According to the woodland trust website they are all but extinct in the British countryside. Is wood being imported from overseas ? I find this unlikely.
As to diesel generators – are these public works/emergency power or are people installing generators at home as electricity is so expensive ?
Summing up I think that this meeting of councillors will achieve nothing bar making for some copy. Freeing up traffic would make a big difference. Or total pedestrianisation of the centre.
From the article councillor hopes to achieve is to provide information that wood stove burn are damage to you and the environment to residents who believe they are a Green alternative or no not such harm.
They hope to appeal to people’s better nature not to use their wood burning stove and be part of protecting our environment. If there are complaints the article said the process of enforce would start with a chat about the complain with the council. That will give you or any other resident to put forward that you are not as bad as other people or Companies. That this is some that has been whipped up by the internet by a very small minority and and science that may affect you is in fact not true. You can add your history lesson that oddly back up the mess we are in today.
See how it goes.
I agree I don’t think it will have much effect and would go for a ban on all open fires and wood stoves as you say is only a minor so should not be a problem
Liked your pedestrian only town centre idea add in electric buses delivery vans and taxi
Oh no – not electric vehicles. The increase in PM 2.5 from the tyres on EVs is horrendous, and the origins of the materials used in batteries is very dubious. Trams on rails is the way to go – or maglev – but that is expensive.
Dear Tailor,
Do you take as much care with your research as you do in trying to construct a coherent sentence?
I expect so.
Wood burning stoves are archaic and should have been banned under smokeless zones.
It has long been known that wood smoke is dangerous. Apart from particulate matter which has been found in foetuses and every organ in the body. Wood smoke contains arsenic, cadmium, lead, bezene, formaldehyde it’s estimated that wood smoke is 12 times more likely to cause cancer than cigarette smoke.
Calling it a green fuel was a con perpetuated by the manufacturers.
Completely agree
You forgot candles and incense. Lethal.
Haha!
If we want rid of carbon why is it not being given to the steel mills, for free.
Pragmatically, whilst I am generally in favour of improving the environment and reducing the negative effect on said environment, at this current moment, I don’t believe BHCC should be focusing on this project, instead on aspects such as the housing shortage and regeneration.
In today’s news – Rubbish incineration is now the dirtiest form of power generation. I wonder how that affects air control round here ?