Air Quality Monitoring

The Town Council is monitoring the roadside air quality with diffusion tubes for a period of a year to establish if areas outside the current AQMA (Air Quality Management Area) have pollution levels that could be harmful to health by exceeding the UK Air Quality Strategy Objectives.  There is evidence that high levels of NO₂, a colourless gas produced when fossil fuels are burned , can inflame the airways and, over a long period of time, affect how well the lungs work. Diesel is one of the main sources of this toxic gas.

The concentration of NO₂ is measured in micrograms in each cubic metre of air (µg m³). A microgram (µg) is one millionth of a gram. A concentration of 1 µg m³ means that one cubic metre of air contains one microgram of pollutant. To protect our health, the UK Government set two air quality objectives for NO₂ in their Air Quality Strategy:

1. The hourly objective, which is the concentration of NO₂ in the air, averaged over a period of one hour. This is designed to make sure that we are not exposed to high concentrations of NO₂ for short periods of time. High concentrations can arise in episodes, which are usually associated with particular weather conditions.
2. The annual objective, which is the concentration of NO₂ in the air, averaged over a period of a year. This aims to protect us from being exposed to NO₂  over a long time. The EU Limit value and UK Air Quality Strategy objective for NO₂ is 40 µg m³

Further more information see  https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/aqeg/nd-summary.pdf (in file)

The table below shows the results of the monitoring by diffusion tubes, which show the concentration of NO₂ in the air measured in µg m³. A reading over 40 µg m³ exceeds the UK Air Quality Strategy objective.