Letter

SEVERAL residents have asked me about the Air Quality monitoring in Exeter Road, Crediton, because of my former involvement with the Crediton Traffic Action Group, so I contacted Simon Newcombe at Mid Devon District Council Environmental Health and I received this reply which your readers might find useful.

Cllr Judi Binks

Sandford and Creedy

Mid Devon District Council

Mr Newcombe writes:

"We have continued to monitor the air quality in Exeter Road (and elsewhere in the town) since the link road opened. This was important so we could establish how effective the road has been and whether we could redefine the boundaries of areas which have previously had pollution levels above Government targets eg: Exeter Road.

The monitoring has been a combination of the continuous (real-time) station sited on the western side of Exeter Road and the less sophisticated monitoring tubes at three locations from the top to the bottom of the road on the eastern side.

We now have a clear 12-months of monitoring data since the link road opened and are currently ratifying that before reporting the results. I am happy to report that the initial analysis shows that there has been a step change in air quality along the road for the better.

Levels of the two pollutants of concern – nitrogen dioxide and fine particulates (known as PM10) look likely to be below the Government thresholds for the first time since we began monitoring some 10 years ago.

I will be taking a report to the Managing the Environment PDG on March 8, with the monitoring results.

It could be that there will also be a recommendation to decommission the continuous monitoring station given its job would be done and it’s relatively costly to maintain and calibrate every year – that is something which is not decided presently.

Whatever the case we will continue with some tube monitoring in Exeter Road for the foreseeable future so we can continue to observe the air quality trend."