Falls in air pollution across the Banbury area – but one area still remains a concern

Councillor Barry Wood (Con, Fringford & Heyfords), leader of Cherwell District Council, welcomed a report which showed three of the region’s four air quality management areas – places where average levels were too high for national standards, requiring the council to intervene – had stable nitrogen oxide levels below government limits in 2021.

But 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.

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 Covid pandemic but have stayed much lower than they were in 2019.

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 (Con, Bicester South & Ambrosden), Cherwell’s portfolio holder for cleaner and greener communities, said: “Overall, I think this is a positive state of affairs.

"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.

“With the greater rollout of electric vehicles, we will hopefully see levels go down further in the future.”

Cllr Wood added: “The bottom line for me is that air quality is getting better, not worse.

“That is a good thing, people are quite rightly concerned about air quality and it is good to note that there are mobile monitors.

“If there are people in this district who think 'hold on, you haven’t thought of my area', then now is the time to contact the council or your councillor to say. If you don’t measure it, you can’t tell how good or bad it is.

“These are positive aspects on air quality which we haven’t had for a long time so this is a very welcome report.”

Results at Banbury’s two monitoring spots in annual mean Nitrogen Dioxide levels (μg/m3)

Hennef Way, Banbury

2017: 91.6

2018: 81.2

2019: 77.5

2020: 57.9

2021: 58.6

Status: Red (over the annual mean objective level)

Summary: In Hennef Way, Banbury, nitrogen dioxide concentrations have been steadily falling since 2018, but continue to show exceedances of the annual mean objective level. The 2021 level, however, remained at roughly the same level as was measured in 2020 during lockdown.

Horsefair/North Bar, Banbury

2017: 41.8

2018: 38.7

2019: 38.6

2020: 30.0

2021: 30.4

Status: Green (below the annual mean objective level)

Summary: In Horsefair/North Bar, Banbury, there was a very small (below 1 μg/m3) increases in nitrogen dioxide concentrations when compared with the results from 2020, and remain a significant amount below the annual mean objective level.