Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what criteria, checks and procedures his Department used to decide where to site Automatic Urban and Rural Network units.

Defra adheres to the Air Quality Standards Regulations (2010) when deciding where to site Automatic Urban and Rural Network units. This includes detailed provisions on the location and number of sampling points, the measurement methods to be used, the classification of sites, the data quality objectives and the siting criteria each monitoring station must meet. Potential new sites are subject to a detailed technical review process, to ensure that they meet these requirements.