Oxford City Council has become the first local authority to establish a city-wide air pollution target.
The Oxford Air Quality Action Plan was approved last week on 20 January, and details a framework of 30 action points the council and its partners will take to improve air quality across the city between 2021 to 2025.
In this plan, the Council set up its own voluntary target for 30 µg/m3 of NO2 to be achieved, by 2025 at the latest.
This exceeds the current legal target set out by the UK government of 40 µg/m3. However, research suggests that even this current legal annual mean limit for NO2 is not a safe limit for human health.
The Council recognises that this lower limit will not be achievable without introducing key schemes such as the Oxford Zero Emission Zone and Connecting Oxford.
The plan sets out 30 actions and measures across four identified key priority areas:
- Developing partnerships and public education;
- Support for the uptake of low and zero emission vehicles;
- Reducing emissions from domestic heating, industry and services;
- Reduce the need to travel, explore opportunities for mode shift and increase the uptake of sustainable transport.
Oxford has seen NO2 levels reduce by 26% over the past seven years, but recognises that this progress has plateaued recently.
The latest Source Apportionment Study, carried out by WCRAQ partner Ricardo, pinpointed the transport sector in Oxford as the largest contributor with 68% making up the city’s total NOx emissions.
Both Oxford City Council and Oxford County Council plan to introduce a Zero Emission Zone, which will be piloted in August 2021 to ensure Oxford’s residents and visitors are able to breathe clean air and minimise the impact of air pollution.
‘We all have a right to breathe clean air,’ Councillor Tom Hayes, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Green Transport and Zero Carbon Oxford, commented. ‘By setting a new Air Quality Action Plan, and a city-wide air pollution reduction target, we go further and faster than the Government’s national legal target, and we’ll be the first council to do so with an Air Quality Action Plan.’
