Get an air pollution assessment documentation

Information about the service

Terms and Conditions ​

These terms and conditions and any pages they link to (which you: (i) confirm you have read and understood: and (ii) agree are incorporated by reference) detail the UK’s Get an air pollution assessment terms and conditions of use. By using the service, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions.

Who We Are ​

The Get an air pollution assessment is operated by Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) which will be referred to as ‘we’ or ‘us’ from now on. The Get an air pollution assessment service and the associated web pages (service start page ,calculator and archive we operate will be referred to as ‘the service’.

Using the Service ​

You agree to use the service only for lawful purposes. You must also use it in a way that doesn’t: (i) infringe the rights of anyone else; or (ii) restrict or inhibit the use and enjoyment of the service by anyone else.

We update the service regularly and can change or remove content at any time without notice. Service updates can occur for a variety of reasons including security reasons or emergence of new data and evidence.

Most content and data used in the service is subject to Crown copyright protection and, for the purposes of the service, is published under the Open Government Licence (OGL), unless we indicate otherwise.

The service uses the following data sets under OGL sharing agreements:

  • Northern Ireland specific emission factors for poultry and cattle source

  • UK agricultural emission factors

  • Nitrogen oxides (NOx) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) background maps (including Scotland’s NOx background map)

  • NH3 background concentration and Concentration Based Estimated Deposition (CBED) for Ammonia and Nitrogen

  • Road emissions of NOx, the Emission Factors Toolkit

  • Road traffic estimates diurnal profiles

  • Critical load/level linkages for interest features at UK protected sites

  • Shapefiles for Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Areas of Special Scientific Interest (ASSIs), Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) and Special Protection Areas (SPAs) for Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales

  • OSNI Open Data 50m Digital Terrain Model.

In addition, the service uses data from the following individual sharing agreements:

  • Land cover map under the Non-Commercial Government Licence. Data owned by UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology© Database Right/Copyright UKCEH;

  • OS terrain 50 data under OS open data

  • Calculator for Road Emissions of Ammonia (CREAM) owned and provided by Air Quality Consultants (AQC) Ltd.

  • The Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling System (ADMS) – Urban used in the service has a specific licence agreement with its owners CERC Ltd. that authorises its use within the service. Users can only access the modelling capability through the UKAPAS Calculator user interface.

  • The meteorological data is used in calculations within the service and all outputs from those calculations are free to use and distribute but resale or distribution of the data in original form is not permitted.

If any content isn’t subject to Crown copyright protection or published under the OGL, we will usually credit the author or copyright holder.

You can reproduce content published on our pages or within the Get an air pollution assessment service exportable PDF under the OGL as long as the conditions under the OGL are met.

Contact us if you want to reproduce a piece of content but aren’t sure if it’s covered by Crown copyright, OGL or any other listed data sharing agreements.

We make most of the content on the service available through feeds for other websites and applications to use. The websites and applications that use our feeds aren’t our products, and they might use versions of our content that have been edited and stored for later use (‘cached’).

Accuracy of Data ​

We shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that the data is accurate and up to date. However, we cannot provide guarantees, conditions or warranties as to the accuracy of the data provided. All data is presumed as accurate at the time of use.

All efforts are made to align data updates for information available on other services (e.g. Air Pollution Information Service) however there may be lag times between updates across services we have no control over.

Linking to the Get an air pollution assessment ​

We welcome and encourage other websites to link to the Get an air pollution assessment service.

You must contact us for permission if you want to either:

  • charge your website’s users to click on a link to any page on the service; or

  • say your website is associated with or endorsed by Defra or another government department or agency.

Disclaimer ​

While we make every effort to keep our content and data up to date, we don’t provide any guarantees, conditions or warranties that the information will be:

  • current

  • secure

  • accurate

  • complete

  • free from bugs or viruses

We do not publish advice on this service. You should contact a professional or specialist for advice before doing anything on the basis of the content.

We are not liable for any loss or damage that may come from using the service. This includes:

  • any direct, indirect or consequential losses

  • any loss or damage caused by civil wrongs (‘tort’, including negligence), breach of contract or otherwise

  • the use of the service and any websites that are linked to or from it

  • the inability to use the service and any websites that are linked to or from it.

This applies if the loss or damage was foreseeable, arose in the normal course of things or you advised us that it might happen.

This includes (but isn’t limited to) the loss of your:

  • income or revenue

  • salary, benefits or other payments

  • business

  • profits or contracts

  • opportunity

  • anticipated savings

  • data

  • goodwill or reputation

  • tangible property

  • intangible property, including loss, corruption or damage to data or any computer system

  • wasted management or office time

  • a permit and or planning decision

Nothing in these terms and conditions shall operate to limit our liability in respect of the following:

  • death or personal injury arising from our negligence

  • fraudulent misrepresentation

  • any other liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law

Request to Remove content ​

You can ask for content to be removed from the service. We will only do this in certain cases, for example if it breaches copyright laws, contains sensitive personal data or material that may be considered obscene or defamatory.

Contact us to ask for content to be removed. You will need to send us the web address (URL) of the content and explain why you think it should be removed. We will reply to let you know whether we will remove it.

We remove content at our discretion. You can still request information under the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act.

Information about you and your visits to our pages ​

We collect information about you in accordance with our privacy statement and cookie policy. By using the site, you agree to us collecting this information and confirm that any data you provide is accurate.

Virus Protection ​

We make every effort to check and test our pages for viruses at every stage of production. You must make sure that the way you use our pages does not expose you to the risk of viruses, malicious computer code or other forms of interference which can damage your computer system.

We are not responsible for any loss, disruption or damage to your data or computer system that might happen when you use the service.

Viruses, hacking and other offences ​

When using the service, you must not introduce viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or any other material that is malicious or technologically harmful.

You must not try to gain unauthorised access to our content or data, the server on which it is stored or any server, computer or database connected to it.

You must not attack the service in any way. This includes denial-of-service attacks. We will report any attacks or attempts to gain unauthorised access to the service to the relevant law enforcement authorities and share information about you with them.

Governing Law ​

These terms and conditions are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales.

Any dispute you have which relates to these terms and conditions, or your use of the service (whether it be contractual or non-contractual), will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

General ​

There may be legal notices elsewhere on GOV.UK that relate to how you use the service.

We are not liable if we fail to comply with these terms and conditions because of circumstances beyond our reasonable control.

We might decide not to exercise or enforce any right available to us under these terms and conditions. We can always decide to exercise or enforce that right at a later date.

Doing this once will not mean we automatically waive the right on any other occasion.

If any of these terms and conditions are held to be invalid, unenforceable or illegal for any reason, the remaining terms and conditions will still apply.

Changes to these terms and conditions ​

Please check these terms and conditions regularly. We can update them at any time without notice.

You are deemed to have agreed to any changes to these terms and conditions in circumstances where you continue to use the service after the terms and conditions have been updated.