Scottish Government

Dear Sir or Madam

CONSULTATION ON DRAFT PROPOSALS TO TRANSPOSE DIRECTIVE 2004/107/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL RELATING TO ARSENIC, CADMIUM, MERCURY, NICKEL AND POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC HYDROCARBONS IN AMBIENT AIR

I am writing to let you know that we have today published a consultation paper seeking views on the proposed Air Quality Standards (Scotland) Regulations 2007. These Regulations are intended to:

a) transpose Directive 2004/107/EC of 15 December 2004 relating to arsenic, cadmium, mercury, nickel and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons ( PAHs) in ambient air (fourth Daughter Directive): and
b) revoke the current Air Quality Limit Values (Scotland) Regulations 2003 and consolidate the provisions of these Regulations which give effect to:

• Council Directive 96/62/EC of 27 September 1996 on ambient air quality assessment and management (Air Quality Framework Directive);
• Council Directive 1999/30/EC of 22 April 1999 relating to limit values for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and oxides of nitrogen, particulate matter and lead in ambient air (first Daughter Directive);
• Directive 2000/69/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 November 2000 relating to limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide in ambient air (second Daughter Directive); and
• Directive 2002/3/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 February 2002 relating to ozone in ambient air (third Daughter Directive).
• The current Regulations also incorporate requirements imposed by the following: Commission Decision 2001/744/EC amending Annex V to Council Directive 99/30/EC and Directive 2003/35/EC of 26 May 2003 providing for public participation in respect of the drawing up of certain plans and programmes relating to the environment.
  

Electronic copies of the consultation paper can be downloaded from the following weblink:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Consultations/Current

Responding to this consultation paper

We are inviting written responses to this consultation paper by 31 January 2007. Please send your response plus a copy of the Respondent Information Form attached to this letter to:

Claire.Dodd@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

or

Claire Dodd
Air, Noise and Nuisance Team

If you have any queries contact Claire Dodd on 0131 244 7699.

We would be grateful if you could clearly indicate in your response which parts of the consultation paper you are responding to as this will aid our analysis of the responses received.

Handling your response

We need to know how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be made public. Please complete and return the Respondent Information Form attached to this letter as this will ensure that we treat your response appropriately. If you ask for your response not to be published we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.

All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Executive are subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.

Next steps in the process

Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public (see the attached Respondent Information Form), these will be made available to the public in the Scottish Executive Library by 24 February 2007. We will check all responses where agreement to publish has been given for any potentially defamatory material before logging them in the library or placing them on the website. You can make arrangements to view responses by contacting the SE Library on 0131 244 4565. Responses can be copied and sent to you, but a charge may be made for this service.

What happens next ?

Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other available evidence to help us reach a decision on the proposals.

If you have any comment about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to:

David Wallace
Air, Noise and Nuisance Team

E-mail: air.quality@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

This consultation, and all other SE consultation exercises, can be viewed online at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations. You can telephone Freephone 0800 77 1234 to find out where your nearest public internet access point is.

The Scottish Executive now has an email alert system for SE consultations ( SEconsult). This system allows stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly email containing details of all new SE consultations (including web links). SEconsult complements, but in no way replaces SE distribution lists, and is designed to allow stakeholders to keep up to date with all SE consultations activity, and therefore be alerted at the earliest opportunity to those of most interest. We would encourage you to register.

Yours faithfully

Claire Dodd

RESPONDENT INFORMATION FORM: TRANSPOSITION OF FOURTH AIR QUALITY DAUGHTER DIRECTIVE

Please complete the details below and return it with your response. This will help ensure we handle your response appropriately. Thank you for your help.