Alarming air pollution readings reveal ‘true scale of city issue’

Harmful pollutants are reaching levels in Canterbury almost 10 times higher than the legal annual average, new figures suggest.

Data collected by a clean air campaigner in two traffic-plagued spots in the city shows nitrogen dioxide readings as high as 381 micrograms per cubic metre at peak times.

Under UK law, the upper limit for average nitrogen dioxide concentration in a given year is 40.

The alarming readings were recorded in St Stephen’s Road - a popular route for primary schoolchildren - but city council figures for the area in 2018 reveal averages of only 33 and 38.5.

It has led to calls for the authority to fund Earthsense Zephyr monitors, which record readings every 10 seconds, as opposed to the monthly averages provided by more common diffusion tubes.

They were used last month by Stephen Peckham, the University of Kent’s professor of health policy, to collect data at level crossings in St Stephen’s Road and St Dunstan’s.

He says current legal requirements, which only oblige councils to report monthly averages of nitrogen dioxide, do not take into account widely varying levels at different periods of the day and could mean that dangerously polluted areas are missing out on government funding.

“That doesn’t tell you that during the day, the levels are much, much higher,” he explained.

“For the last few months, we