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Roadside Pollution Units

Answer

There are 17 roadside sites in the National Automatic Urban and Rural Network (AURN; See Table 1), monitoring mainly oxides of nitrogen and carbon monoxide. There are a large number of roadside sites run by local authorities which are not in the AURN. Data from and site information on all the national monitoring sites are available on the National Air Quality Information Archive (www.airquality.co.uk).Local authorities have a duty to Review and Assess air quality in their areas. This often involves monitoring of oxides of nitrogen, PM10 and other pollutants at roadside locations. While DEFRA is a statutory consultee for local authority reports on air quality, monitoring results are made available to the public by local authorities. DEFRA does not log the monitoring information from these assessments. A partial survey of monitoring sites in the UK was carried out in November 2003. This estimated the total number of monitoring sites in the UK at around 6–700. A large proportion of these are likely to be roadside sites.

Table 1: Pollutants monitored at roadside sites in the National Automatic Urban and Rural Network (AURN)
Site name	Pollutants measured	Local Authority
Bath Roadside	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide	Bath and NE Somerset
Brentford Roadside	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide	London Borough of Hounslow
Brighton Roadside	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide	Brighton and Hove
Bristol OM	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide	Bristol City Council
Bury Roadside	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide, PM10, sulphur dioxide, ozone	Bury MBC
Cambridge Roadside	Oxides of nitrogen	Cambridge City Council
Exeter Roadside	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, ozone	Exeter City Council
Haringey Roadside	Oxides of nitrogen, PM10	London Borough of Haringey
Hove Roadside	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide	Brighton and Hove
London A3 Roadside	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide, PM10	Kingston Upon Thames
London Bromley	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide	London Borough of Bromley
London Cromwell Road 2	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide	Kensington and Chelsea
Norwich Forum Roadside	Oxides of nitrogen	Norwich City Council
Oxford Centre Roadside	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide	Oxford City Council
Southwark Roadside	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide	London Borough of Southwark
Tower Hamlets Roadside	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide	London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Wrexham	Oxides of nitrogen, Carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide	Wrexham County Borough
(18) Oxides of nitrogen include nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2)

The criteria for defining a site as Roadside is as follows: the site must be between 1 m from the kerb of a busy road and the back of the pavement. Sites are typically within 5 m of the road with a sampling height of 2 to 3 m.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

37774; 440 c2391-2W

Session

2005-06

Subjects

Exhaust emissions Monitoring Roads Pollutants

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk