Shepton Mallet motorists are being discouraged from idling their engines in car parks in a bid to improve air quality and residents' health.

Mendip District Council will be installing 'no idling' signs in all 51 of the car parks which it operates in a bid to change drivers' behaviour.

Similar signs will also be put in place at the recycling sites in Frome, Street and Wells as part of an agreement with the Somerset Waste Partnership.

The council is also investigating ways of enforcing its no idling stance using traffic wardens – which would see motorists hit with fines as a last resort.

Councillor Heather Shearer, portfolio holder for community health services, gave an update on the plans at a virtual cabinet meeting held on Monday evening (September 7).

She said: "We are very lucky to have on the whole very good air quality, but that doesn't mean we should rest on our laurels.

"We have had some warm words from Defra for trying to get ahead of the curve."

The signs will be installed in the coming weeks at a cost of £4,500.

Councillor Barry O'Leary said the council needed to work with schools to reduce idling on or near their sites, to prevent children from putting put at further risk.

He said: "One of the unfortunate things is that commuting has gone up as a result of people commuting to schools, and as a result I'm very concerned that idling will also go up.

"I hope we can work in partnership with schools, because that will be where the greatest challenge is.

"Coming out of Covid, some behaviours we thought may have been 'legacy behaviours' are being revisited – and in people's desires to keep their children notionally safe from a virus, they are exposing them to the hazards of fumes, which are omnipresent."

Ms Shearer said the district and county council would work together on how the no-idling policy could be enforced, especially when it came to repeat offenders.

She said: "The intention would be to follow existing enforcement policy, and deploy antisocial behaviour legislation to issue community protection warnings as a first step, followed by a penalty notice if the warning was not effective in amending the behaviour.

"If a subsequent notice was thought to be breached, officers would focus on witnessing and issuing a fixed penalty fine (currently £100) or pursue a prosecution."

Ms Shearer said the council would try to work with schools to highlight the issue around Clean Air Day on October 8.

She said: "The schools have an awful lot on their plates going back.

"It's not a straight run, but we are certainly going to try [to work with them]."