PORTABLE devices are being used to highlight potential hotspots for air pollution across Cherwell with residents urged to raise problem areas.
Councillor Barry Wood, leader of Cherwell District Council, welcomed a report which showed three of the region’s four air quality management areas had stable nitrogen oxide levels below government limits in 2021.
Levels remain stubbornly high on Hennef Way, Banbury, where the council reports scope to bring them down is ‘limited’ due to it being the main route between the town and the M40, although they are down by more than a third since 2017.
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Levels crept up fractionally across all four – Hennef Way, Horsefair/North Bar in Banbury, Bicester Road in Kidlington and Kings End/Queens Avenue in Bicester – compared with 2020, a year when readings dropped dramatically during the coronavirus pandemic.
Part of the council’s work to stay on track across the region, on top of the other 38 sites which are permanently monitored in Cherwell, is to use government-funded portable devices to measure the impact of new housing developments and of cars that wait with motors running outside schools.
Councillor Dan Sames, Cherwell’s portfolio holder for cleaner and greener communities, said: “We are very keen to see levels decrease further but also to see whether we can monitor in areas where members of the public have particular concerns, and that will perhaps enable us to see the impacts of development.
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“With the greater rollout of electric vehicles, we will hopefully see levels go down further in the future.”
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