Airborne particle monitoring

Tender description

The Environment Agency (‘The Authority’) on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and Devolved Administrations is seeking to procure a service provider to manage and operate the Central Management and Control Unit (CMCU) for the Automatic London Network (ALN), a network of air quality monitoring stations in London and the south east of England. The ALN forms a subset of stations on the UK's automatic urban and rural network which is managed under a separate agreement. The objective of this contract is for the Contractor to measure and monitor the ambient concentrations of air pollutants in the ALN in order to: — Inform the public about air quality in near-real time; — Provide data for comparison with statutory air quality standards, objective, target and limit values; — Inform and support the development of cost-effective planning solutions and allow the identification of long term trends and sources of pollution; — Inform policy development; — Provide data for use by the scientific community in research; — Enhance our understanding of atmospheric chemistry; — Liaise and co-operate with other networks as appropriate where co-location of monitoring equipment at ALN sites occurs in order to identify potential areas of efficiency to the Authority. Details of multiple networks operating at the same location are included on the UK Air website. The purpose of the ALN is to manage and operate the monitoring of air pollutants at sixteen (16) specified sites. The scope of services to be provided includes but is not limited to: — Management, operation and development of the monitoring sites; — Provision of Local Site Operators (LSOs) for 4 sites; — Provision of consumables via the Equipment Support Units for Authority owned equipment; — Provision of equipment support and maintenance for all Authority owned equipment sites; — Assisting with procurement of equipment as required for Authority owned sites or where upgrades of equipment are required for national purposes at affiliate sites; — Reviewing service provision at affiliate sites so that data quality objectives are achieved and monitoring is carried out to the same standard as sites on the Authority's Automatic Urban and Rural Network (AURN); — Collecting and storing data from all sites on the network (Authority owned and affiliate), and disseminating to Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QAQC) unit and Defra's Data Dissemination Unit; — Transmitting data from calibrations and services to the London Air Quality Network (LAQN) and QAQC unit; — Adhering to health and safety legislation including production of risk registers, method statements and risk assessments as required.