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MINUTES OF THE SOUTHERN ENGLAND RADIATION MONITORING GROUP MEETING HELD ON THE 19 FEBRUARY 2002 |
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Present
John Leech, Exeter City Council Paul Williams, Torbay Council Monica Wilsh, Slough Borough Council Dr Ian Croudace, University of Southampton Kate Bishop, West Wiltshire District Council Caroline Bailey, Newbury Council
Penny Austin and Wink Janes. The Minutes were agreed. It was likely that the CIEH will be publishing something on this later on in the year. The Work Programme allocates 5 days early in 2002. Ian was pursuing possible funding from Intereg which is a inter regional fund which may be of some assistance to us. He would pass a copy of the information to Alan. John Haikin raised the question of whether or not anybody had done any work on these Regs. Alan noted that his Emergency Planning Officer was looking at them and he would distribute any information arising from that. ACTION: AMH Ian reported that he felt people were cutting corners on some of the sampling due to time pressures. He indicated that if there were authorities that were experiencing problems they should get in touch with the University to discuss whether it was appropriate to take other samples or what other solutions there might be. The annual report would be ready in approximately two weeks and a smaller glossy version was to be produced. Ian would find out costing on the smaller version and we needed to ask Local Authorities how many they would need. The cost was likely to be relatively small. It was felt that we ought to issue a press release when the report was published and Ian would produce some bullet points on this which then each of the Steering Group members would be asked to pursue with their relevant Public Relations Officers. It was noted that to accredit the whole scheme would cost about £8,500 but just for the lab £2.5k. This would work out at £50 per Authority which was in line with the findings of the survey. Alan would write to Keith Binfield at Rimnet to ensure they were happy for us to move on accrediting the lab and also to ask Ian if they were prepared to pay for this. We would then have to confirm with all Authorities their willingness to support this approach. This needed to be updated to take into account terrorist incidents, the REPPIR Regulations, question of internal risk assessments for health & safety for staff and transport issues. All were asked to review the document and let Ian have any further comments. ACTION: ALL The calibration unit was still with Alan and Ian would endeavour to make arrangements for it to be collected or as Alan was coming over to Southampton in about a fortnight he would try and deliver it then. ACTION: IC/AMH Kate raised the IT problems that West Wiltshire were experiencing, mainly because they were running the old system and there was no longer any support for this system. There was a clear need for those running the older system to consider upgrading. John Leech had spoken to Devon County Council and he now had the number for a contact, Chris Cranston which he passed to Ian to pursue. ACTION: IC It was agreed that Alan would write to other providers with details of the current provision by Southampton seeking an indication of the sort of price that they would be wanting to provide the service. Subject to there being no better price Ian would proceed to issue new contracts for the Hants, Dorset and Isle of Wight authorities around the end of April. 8 April 2002 - the programme was agreed, although subsequent to the meeting it was noted that Alan Blythe was available to speak on Radon and this would now be included within the programme. The results of the questionnaire that were distributed to all authorities within SERMG are attached for information and in response to some of the issues raised in the questionnaire it was agreed - That we would write to other providers to get an indication of likely costs for the contract. We would produce a questionnaire for the Seminar on the provision of other services (Ian and Alan to produce). We would include some optional refresher training at the end of the Seminar. We would raise the issue of the Chemical Incidence Advisory Service at the Seminar for further discussion. Although there seemed to be considerable support for this there needed to be some clarity about what people actually considered where they requirements. John Leech noted that some work had been carried out in Devon on the availability of Chemical Incidence databases and he would provide this to Alan for information. 16 May 2002, 11am at Reading Borough Council. |
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