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Latest evidence heralds new era for air quality in Winchester

Winchester City Council has launched a public consultation on the proposed Air Quality Action Plan for the city centre.

It includes a series of measures designed to reduce the nitrogen dioxide emissions which are particularly associated with traffic hotspots in St George’s Street, Romsey Road and Chesil Street.

Confirmation has been received from the Council’s independent monitoring consultants that for the first time in 2016 there was no breach of statutory emissions levels at the bottom of St George’s Street.

Cllr Jan Warwick, the Council’s Portfolio Holder for Environment, said:

We are delighted to learn of the improvements to air quality on St George’s Street, but we are not complacent. There are still other challenges to tackle in the city, and the current improvements have to be maintained for three consecutive years in order to officially ‘un-declare’ an air quality management area. Nevertheless, this is a really good step forward - and an encouraging way to start 2017.

The draft Air Quality Action Plan on which the Council is now inviting comment has been developed following a year of evidence-gathering, stakeholder discussions and debate by members at the Council covering transport, parking, health, business and the environment. Actions range from further changes to parking charges to investigating a new park-and-ride car park, and from banning big diesel vehicles from the city centre to making consideration of air quality impacts an integral part of the planning process.

Dave Ingram, Head of Environmental Services and Licensing at the Council, added:

We have focused on actions which we know our Council can deliver, without relying on external partners or funding. This way, we are certain of what we can achieve by 2020. We are also keen to play a community leadership role in encouraging behavioural change locally, and have already started to review our own travel plan and fleet procurement policies.

With new monitoring equipment now in place in St George’s Street and Chesil Street, the Council will be able to track future emissions levels with confidence, and is hopeful of continued and sustained improvement. On the basis of evidence from the monitoring equipment, the Council will be able to decide whether additional, more ambitious, measures are needed to ensure that air quality across the city centre is meeting – or indeed exceeding - legal requirements.

Cllr Warwick explained:

Air quality is very much in the media spotlight at the moment, and local pressure groups have tended to criticise the Council for not doing enough. But the actions we have taken over the past decade, combined with ongoing changes in technology which are leading to cleaner, greener car ownership, are clearly starting to have an effect.

Members of the public wishing to comment on the draft Action Plan can do so at https://winchester.citizenspace.com/ over the next four weeks. Feedback will be presented to the Council’s Cabinet in March 2017, along with the final Air Quality Action Plan.

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