Lancaster's Air Quality Management Area turns Twenty!

There has been a big birthday celebration this week, with the 20th anniversary of the Lancaster city centre Air Quality Management Area last Tuesday. Basically the entire one-way system is likely to exceed the 1 hour and annual mean objectives for nitrogen dioxide.

However, there may be some positive news in that we have heard rumors that Lancashire County Council will be receiving almost half a billion pounds of additional funding from next year onward to transform transport across the County. That’s equivalent to almost a week and a half’s worth of that mythical money that we used to pay to Europe and somebody said we could give the NHS instead if we left. The question is whether any of this will be used to address the air pollution problem in Lancaster.

The Northern Bypass was supposed to solve the already longstanding air pollution problem, but instead it has been used as a relief road so that more through traffic can use the city centre as a though route. Rishi Sunak certainly doesn’t need to be worrying about any of that nasty Lefty “War on Drivers” here.