Mixed bag for Louth County Council in EPA assessment

Louth County Council have been given a strong rating for their Environmental Governance processes in the latest local authority assessment carried out by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

The report sets out the results of the EPA’s assessment of local authority environmental performance for 2021. 

This is the first report under the revised Local Authority Performance Framework, which aims to better align performance scores to the delivery of environmental outcomes under National Enforcement Priorities (NEPs). 

These NEPs are categorised under four themes, governance processes, waste, water, and air & noise.

Louth County Council were given a rating of moderate in the Water, Waste and Air & Noise categories.

Across all twenty National Enforcement Priorities (NEPs) Louth County Council scored 1 Excellent; 6 Strong; 9 Moderate and 4  Limited. 

However they were one of only five local authorities that failed to meet the required standard in all five air & noise NEPs.

The report also singled out Louth and Offaly as two local authorities that achieved a Limited result in ensuring that fuel products comply with the relevant standards.

Commenting on the report, David Pollard, Programme Manager of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Enforcement said:

“Local authorities continue to carry out extensive water quality monitoring, however, there is scope to make better use of this monitoring to target enforcement action aimed at improving water quality.

“Air and noise enforcement continues to have the lowest level of dedicated resources within local authorities. Better targeting and coordination of resources in this area is necessary to protect public health. It is crucial that local authorities tackle air pollution issues by making sure that only approved solid fuels are sold.

“The scale of waste and litter enforcement carried out by local authorities is significant. However, the range of the waste priorities to be addressed is broad and few local authorities managed to cover the full scope in 2021.

“In particular, there is a need for increased enforcement efforts to improve segregation of domestic, commercial, construction and demolition waste in order to improve reuse and recycling of materials.”