Maitland councillor Henry Meskauskas was responding to news of decisions on monitoring stations in the Upper Hunter, and said his city needed its own readings.

But there was a perception among locals that monitoring in Maitland would make things uncomfortable for the coal industry and put pressure on the state government to tighten regulations.

‘‘We’ve got the trains going past every three minutes leaving dust and rubbish, and it’s going to be more money for [coal companies] to put some kind of cover on the wagons,’’ Cr Meskauskas said.

The Upper Hunter Air Quality Monitoring Network advisory committee has come closer to agreement on the locations of stations at Muswellbrook, Aberdeen, Singleton and Warkworth.

Department of Environment director-general Lisa Corbyn said committee members had visited the proposed Muswellbrook and Aberdeen sites and had ‘‘made significant headway’’.

‘‘While the general locale of all 14 monitoring stations has already been endorsed by the committee, at last week’s general meeting they agreed on the detailed site selection,’’ Ms Corbyn said.

But Cr Meskauskas said monitoring Upper Hunter air quality without taking readings in Maitland was ‘‘a cop-out’’.

‘‘I hear the trains going past, my car’s got black dust on it and we’re breathing that,’’ he said.

‘‘It’s a cop-out, and it’s about time they started to get fair dinkum about it.’’

Cr Meskauskas has previously called on the state government to study the impact of coalmining and coal-fired power stations on the health of Hunter residents.

The study, he said, should assess the cumulative impacts of dust and emissions from the Rutherford industrial estate.