Air quality improving in Oswestry and Newtown, councils say

Shropshire Council is looking to revoke the Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) for part of Oswestry, 13 years after it was declared.

The AQMA covered a single property known as Gate House, which is located at the junction on the A483, Sweeney, Oswestry.

On Wednesday, members of Shropshire Council's cabinet will discuss a report by Karen Collier, the council's regulatory services operations manager, and consider authorising the director of Public Health to remove the AQMA.

In the report, Ms Collier said: "The AQMA was declared due to a likely breach of the annual mean nitrogen dioxide national air quality objective of 40 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

She said the the cause of the poor quality air was traffic exhaust fumes, with the property being one metre of the kerbside of the A483 – a busy trunk road, and the road generally takes a large amount of traffic with a "significant proportion" of HGVs.

Ms Collier said a review of monitoring data in 2015 highlighted the fact that the concentration of nitrogen dioxide had dropped in recent years.

She said: "The review demonstrated no breach of the annual nitrogen dioxide objective for 10 consecutive years, pollutant levels such as nitrogen dioxide emitted from vehicle exhausts have slowly reduced over this time."

She said it is not expected that any "significant increases" in air pollution are likely in the future.

"No major development is proposed in the area and therefore it is not expected that transport numbers will change significantly in future years," she said.

She added: "National data suggests that vehicle numbers will increase incrementally over future years however due to improvements in emission standards for vehicles entering the market these improvements are expected to compensate for increased traffic numbers.

"Monitoring has shown that the Air Quality Objective for nitrogen dioxide in the Oswestry AQMA has not been exceeded for the past 10 years, the assessment indicates it is not likely to be exceeded in the future and as such it should be removed."

It comes as Powys County Council announced its only AQMA in Newtown has been revoked.

The authority has has revoked the New Road AQMA in Newtown, nine years after the area was declared. The council's decision to revoke the AQMA has been accepted by the Welsh Government.

The area was declared after levels of nitrogen dioxide exceeded the National Air Quality Objective. The cause of the poor quality air was traffic exhaust fumes.

Powys County Council has monitored levels of nitrogen dioxide since 2008, which has been steadily decreasing mainly due to improved exhaust and emission management in newer vehicles. Since 2012, the levels have not exceeded the National Air Quality Objective level.

Sue Bolter, the council's head of regeneration, property and commissioning, said: "With three years of data confirming that the National Air Quality Objective level is no longer being exceeded, the Welsh Government accepted the council's recommendation that the AQMA be revoked. This is excellent news for people living and working in Newtown confirming their air is much cleaner than it was in the past.

"While the exact reason for this decreasing trend cannot be determined, changes in vehicle emission standards and changes to traffic management arrangements on Park Street have had an excellent impact."

Ms Botler also said that further air quality modelling undertaken as part of the Newtown bypass scheme show that nitrogen dioxide levels will fall further once the scheme is open.