Air quality action plans

Authoritative and local

You may not know, but all London boroughs have an air quality action plan (AQAP). We thought we’d take a look at some recent ones, particularly to see which boroughs are keeping up with new World Health Organisation targets.

Our local borough, Lambeth, luckily has one of the most recent. It’s so far the only one we’ve found to commit to more stringent interim WHO targets (30 micrograms per cubic metre for NO2, 10 for PM2.5, 20 for PM10 - see our earlier blog for explanations). Its most recent consolidated monitoring data (from 2021) show NO2 around 40 and PM10 around 30 so there is a way to go (sites do not cover PM2.5).

The action plans also tend to explain what monitoring infrastructure each borough has: Lambeth has over 100 diffusion tubes and 3 air quality monitoring stations. We’ll have to give you a virtual tour of what these are in a later blog! They also set out the major sources of pollution - for Lambeth these are industry and transport, as you might imagine, but domestic pollution is almost as significant a source when it comes to PM2.5.

And for the rest

Lots of other boroughs seem to have AQAPs in the works. We’ve spotted consultations closing in 2022 and early 2023 for Wandsworth, Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Camden, Waltham Forest, Ealing and Brent. Why not see what your local authority is up to and influence their plans if you still have time?

The only other recently completed one we found was Lewisham. Sadly this one discusses but does not commit to the new WHO targets. Like Lambeth is has a nice array of diffusion tubes and a handful of continuous monitoring side. And similarly it has identified road transport and industry as major pollution sources. Its 2021 monitoring data is actually a little better than Lambeth: NO2 around 20 micrograms per cubic metre, PM2.5 around 11 and PM10 around 19. So why not commit to get them down to global best in class? We hope the next batch of AQAPs sets the ambition!

If you want to get even more stuck into what’s going on across London boroughs, we found this nice compendium produced by the Greater London Authority. Check out your borough and see how it compares! (Hint: Lambeth is apparently part of Central London….)

Nodal shift

Quick update on the installation of our node, in the very heart of Lambeth. It’s been delivered! Now to get it installed. Pass the spanner 🔧