Tag: air quality

• Slightly less fog on the Tyne

  Newcastle City Council has come back to me with a bit of background to last week’s story that it was considering installing a barrier to tackle Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) exceedances at a pollution hotspot.

  Apparently, the BBC picked the story up from consultation documents relating to the council’s draft air quality action plan, which sets out potential options for improving air quality, including at a location on Stephenson Road where there have been high readings of NO2.

  

  The council said that a study is underway and is looking at modelling data to determine whether a barrier could have a positive effect in reducing short-term exposure to NO2 emissions in this location.
  
  It is expecting results from the study “later in the summer”, which will help to inform what next steps may be taken but that is a bit too soon to say that is are actively considering installing any measures as at this stage.

  The barrier doesn’t appear to be in the draft plan itself but the study is referenced in this document from SPACE for Gosforth (Safe Pedestrian and Cycling Environment).
  
  A council spokesperson said:

  We do not currently have any plans to install any barriers on Stephenson Road.
  
  We are looking at ways we can improve air quality and a data-based study looking at the impact of potential solutions is being carried out.
  
  Until this data is available we do not know what measures may be effective and whether any measures would be installed in the future.

  2026.05.20

• “Reducing diesel traffic is the only way to genuinely fix the air quality”

  Newcastle City Council is reportedly thinking about installing a barrier to tackle toxic air pollution on a road where illegal levels of nitrogen oxide (NO2) are forecast to persist until 35 years after what should be strict legal limits became law.
  
  The BBC reports:

  Stephenson Road in Heaton, Newcastle, has high levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2).
  
  Newcastle City Council is exploring whether a barrier, or rerouting the pavement itself, could reduce the amount of pollution pedestrians are exposed to.

  

  According to the BBC:

  Annual average NO2 levels estimated by a monitor on Stephenson Road, on the entrance to Jesmond Park West, are 1.6 times higher than average UK permitted maximum levels and 6.45 times higher than the World Health Organization’s advised amounts.

  (more…)

  2026.05.15

• Unpicking National Highways’ environmental record

  The Office of Rail and Road’s (ORR) Annual Assessment of National Highways’ performance: end of the second road period April 2020 to March 2025 has details of the company’s performance against KPIs on environmental issues and it’s a bio-diverse picture to say the least.

  Cutting corporate carbon emissions is one KPI where the company has failed and failed badly; it’s also a measure where I have been tracking the moving of the goalposts for sometime, and have indeed contributed to the moving of the goalposts.

  In 2023 I reported that the company was claiming to have a mechanism for reporting against its target of a 75% cut against a 2017-18 baseline that amounted to a one-way bet. The expected cut was mainly because the expected decarbonisation of electricity from the grid.

  National Highways claimed to have reached a backroom deal with the government whereby its emissions were based on forecasts of the carbon intensity of electricity, even if they had been proved wrong.

  This was news to the government and a few months later it announced that the calculation methodology would remain based on actual emissions, but the target would be reduced to a 67% cut. It said this wouldn’t make the easier to achieve, which was an interesting spin to say the least.

  The latest ORR report notes that last year the government reduced the target again – to 56%. But…

  At the end of RP2, National Highways achieved a 51% reduction in its corporate carbon emissions compared to the baseline. Therefore, the company did not meet this KPI target of a 56% reduction for the road period.

  And the ORR notes that it challenged National Highways to speed up its move to LED lighting but it refused. So it ended up with a 51% cut against an original target of 75%.

  (more…)

  2025.07.18