All You Need is the Air That You Breath

Environment - the air, water, and land on Earth, which can be harmed by man’s activities.

Environmental - concerning and affecting the air, water, and land on Earth.

Environmentalist – someone who is concerned about protecting the environment.

Longman Exams Dictionary

New laws on environmental pollution could cause a stink in the property market, writes Neasa MacErlean (in a Weekly Journal).

You probably suffer from it if you live in a city, close to an hydroelectric power plant, high voltage transmission line, a major road or anywhere else where there are fumes but little wind. Poor air quality is sometimes millions of people put up with, often without knowing it. But a new website, Homecheck, is making it very easy to find out what the air quality is like for any given postcode. And the likelihood is that would – be homebuyers will start checking air quality and other environmental factors before they make an offer on a property.

You do not have to be one of the nation’s 3.4 million asthmatics to be interested in local air quality. As well as telling you about the ozone layer in your area, the site gives readings on carbon dioxide levels, lead, benzene, butadiene, radon gas and other nasties in the air you breathe. The greater availability of all sorts of environmental information – from land contamination and the type of clay or rock your home is built on to the quality of the air – is going to have a profound effect on the way we view properties, according to the experts.

“The market is going to be in apoplexy – perhaps in a few months”, says surveyor Philip Wilborn, spokesman for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. “We will see quite substantial changes in the values of some properties.”

Some pollution cases come to light simply because the pollution is so bad. Wilborn advised on the case where a woman started getting bad headaches and gradually realized that these often happened after she opened a ground- level cupboard in her kitchen. It turned out that her house and the rest of those on the estate were built on an old mine. The underground galleries had gradually filled with water and were now leaking gas with high level of carbon dioxide

In other cases the existence of contamination may be known by people who have lived in an area for a long time, but may not be spotted by other moving in.

Devon and Cornwall have high levels of radon gas according to Homecheck. Fixing this is fairly easy – a membrane over floor and basement areas – but costs run into the thousands.

Many people will be surprised to find that their home is built on contaminated land. Many estates have been built on the sites of old factories, gasworks and other buildings which may have left a nasty chemical legacy.

Surveyors are now required in their valuations to take environmental issues into account.