Wood-burner pollution

Some of you have been calling me about irritating smoke coming into your properties from neighbouring chimneys. My own house regularly fills with smoke from a nearby wood fire so I have a lot of sympathy for those of you who are similarly affected.

In April, an air pollutant monitoring station was set up in the city to continuously monitor the air quality. As part of council’s moves to comply with the National Standards for Air Quality, council will investigate all calls from residents concerned about pollution from household chimneys. If you have concerns about smoky chimneys, please call PNCC Customer Services on 356-8199.

Why call Customer Services and not me? If you call me, I will advise you to call Customer Services. Please do not think I am “fobbing you off”. A call to me will result in me passing your concern on to council officers, but this does not necessarily get entered into the council computer system. If, for example, I pass on concerns from 20 residents about one chimney, this will show up as one complaint, coming from me on behalf of many. It can also result in some confusion for officers if they are having to deal with me over a number of different complainants relating to the same matter. A call to Customer Services gets your concern noted in the database and this is then directed to the relevant staff. If several calls come in relating to the same problem, they are easily collated into reports. 20 residents calling Customer Services is recorded as 20 complaints. I am always happy to take your calls and do what I can to assist, but with matters such as air pollution it is far better for you to call Customer Services.