Air Pollution Crisis in Central Manchester

The Conservative Government predict a steady decline in NO2 levels sufficient to render the Greater Manchester AQMA obsolete by the year 2020, due to the NO2 levels falling everywhere below the UK/EU legal limit of an annual average threshold value of 40 micrograms per cubic metre (40 μg m-3).

The Government prediction was largely based on the replacement of the more polluting diesel and petrol engines by the Euro-6 engines for all new cars, buses and trucks. The national fall in NO2 levels is indeed happening, albeit slower-than-expected due to the 'Dieselgate' scandal and unbridled optimism.

The Uncomfortable Truth is that the NO2 levels in the MMU Campus and Manchester City Centre have stopped falling, and in 2016 in the city centre, 8 of the 12 NO2 Diffusion Tube Monitors recorded increases in NO2 levels. will not fall but stabilize and then begin to creep up by summer 2018.

Greater Manchester will not meet 2020 date for extinguishment of the AQMA for toxic NO2 air pollution. The AIR EMERGENCY in MMM and MANCHESTER CITY CENTRE will persist unless the new Mayor takes INNOVATIVE EMERGENCY MEASURES:

Air Pollution Crisis in Central Manchester
report and PDF at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316855887_Air_Pollution_Crisis_in_Central_Manchester