Lewes likely to miss air quality target, despite plan

10 June 2009

Lewes’s air quality action plan has been approved by the district council cabinet, but the Sussex town is ‘unlikely’ to reduce its high nitrogen dioxide emissions to within the 2010 EU target.

The final plan sets out a number of measures to deliver improvements in air quality. These include traffic management and road schemes – such as improvements to the A27 at Beddingham Crossing – and the establishment of a wide range of travel plans across the town.

Other measures include the ongoing Lewes parking strategy, education and awareness raising and the investment in new technologies for commercial fleets.

Lindsay Frost, director of planning and environmental services, wrote in the report: ‘This plan, if fully implemented, will deliver an improvement to air quality primarily within the town centre by reducing pollution emitted from vehicles and the amount of traffic on the roads.

‘However, we are concerned that given the time constraints, even with all these measures, we are unlikely to achieve a reduction in the level of nitrogen dioxide to below the air quality objective by the end of December 2010.’

Council officials were required to outline plans to tackle the issues that led to the declaration of parts of the town centre an air quality management area (AQMA) after nitrogen dioxide emissions exceeded the national permitted standards.

The use of titanium dioxide paint could be used ‘to scrub pollutants out of the system’, depending on results from two London borough trials.

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