Putney High Street Breaches Hourly NO2 Limits
19 and 20th breaches recorded this week despite data showing pollution levels are lower than previous years
Data from the from the London Air Quality Network suggests that Putney High Street has become the capital’s second area to breach the hourly mean limit for nitrogen dioxide in 2018.
UK objectives and EU limits stipulate the maximum nitrogen dioxide concentration – 200 µgm/m3 – that must not be exceeded at a single monitoring site for more than 18 hours over the whole year. These limits came into force in 2010.
In January
Brixton Road recorded the first breach of the 200 µgm/m3 hourly mean limit and has since regiestered over 40 exceedances of the legal limit.
It is not all bad news, despite these breaches the High Street is showing an improvement in air quality. In 2016 Putney High Street hit the 19-hour threshold in just eight days and recorded a total of 1,000 hours above the hourly limit across the year.
Improvements in NO2 pollution levels at the two sites have been in part attributed to the introduction of Low Emission Buses which were introduced to Putney in March last year.
In August last year the deputy council leader Jonathan Cook said: “We’ve made good progress on Putney High Street but now is the time to intensify our efforts here and in other pollution hotspots. That’s why we have approved a series of new council-led initiatives and we want TfL and the new Mayor of London to work with us on a series of new partnership interventions like establishing Putney as London’s first ‘clean bus corridor’ used exclusively by ultra low emission buses including hydrogen powered models.
“The council has installed the city’s most sophisticated and comprehensive pollution and traffic monitoring system on this high street so there is no better place to trial new measures and prove they can work. It will be some time before the plans for an Ultra Low Emission Zone are finalised and we are committed to maintaining the momentum we’ve made in Putney.”
March 26, 2018