Report shows improvement to air quality in Waltham Forest

People who live, work, or study in Waltham Forest are breathing cleaner, healthier air thanks to range of improvements pioneered by the Council.

The borough’s latest figures for the air quality Annual Status Report (ASR), a statutory document that all London councils must produce, show that harmful pollutant levels such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter (PM10) have decreased year-on-year since measurements began.

The improvements correlate with interventions put in place by Waltham Forest Council that include creating high-quality cycling infrastructure, delivering energy retrofitting at homes and workplaces, and installing hundreds of electric vehicle charging points.

The ASR covering 2022 shows NO2 levels have decreased significantly over the last seven years across the borough, most impressively by a third in one key monitoring station at Crooked Billet. The data also rebuts suggestions that improved air quality was bought about by restrictions put into place during the Covid-19 pandemic, as reductions continued during 2022 despite all restrictions having been lifted by then. 

Monitoring showed that cases of exceedances of the statutory limit on air pollution had dropped from 28 in 2019, to just one in 2022. 

There were also significant improvements of a drop of more than 30% in average NO2 (compared to 2019 levels) at main road monitoring locations on Blackhorse Road, Hoe Street and High Road Leyton.

The Council is committed to securing even further improvements and will be focusing on tackling fine particulate emissions (PM2.5), especially from wood burning and commercial cooking.

Cllr Clyde Loakes, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Climate and Air Quality, said: “For many years Waltham Forest has been leading the way in reducing harmful emissions, improving our air quality, and building communities that are centred around the people who live in them rather than the motor vehicles that drive through them.

“Our Air Quality Action Plan sets out the actions that we have been taking to make our air even cleaner. This review shows that our actions are bearing fruit.

“Improving our air quality will lead to a better quality of life for our young people. We have a responsibility to act now – we cannot leave this work for someone else to do tomorrow.”

You can read the full Waltham Forest ASR for 2022 online.