Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP)

The 1995 Environment Act required the Borough Council to produce an Action Plan to address air quality in the area.  This follows on from the Stage III Assessment completed in 2000, Stage IV in August 2003 and further Detailed Assessment in July 2004.

During this time detailed monitoring and modelling of roadside NOx levels has been undertaken by the Council's Environmetnal Health team.  This has reaffirmed the declaration of the 3 Air Quality Management Zone's and indicated that unless action is taken it is likely that these levels will rise.

Further modelling, validated by diffusion tube sampling at various sites in the town centre indicated that the Frankwell Island/Smithfield Road AQMA needed to be enlarged to encompass almost the entire town centre area shown as AQMA 03A below.

Click to enlarge image
(enlarged image 262KB)

A Final Draft Action Plan was developed in 2004 to examine the various option available to the Council and its partners, to reduce air pollution in a efficient and efficable way. 

This Draft Action Plan has been formally adopted by elected members and incorporated into the County wide Local Transport Plan.  It has subsequently been refined in 2008 to take into account the enlarged town centre AQMA and finalised following further stakeholder consultation and taking into account the fact that Shropshire County Council's Transport Innovation Fund bid is no longer proceeding. The revised Action Plan was formally adopted by elected members in January 2008

Achieving a shift to more sustainable transport is a key aim of the current Local Transport Plan and there are programmes of measures contained within the Action Plan to help achieve this aim.

Adoption and implementation of this Action Plan incorporating appropriate objectives in the Local Transport Plan, additional specific measures and use of statutory powers held by the Borough Council, will work towards reducing Nitrogen Dioxide levels to meet the Government Objective annual mean level of 40 µg/m3 (microgrammes per cubic metre).

The Environmental Health Team will continue detailed monitoring throughout the Borough in order to confirm this.

To view the full Revised Air Quality Action Plan click on the icon below.

 (word format, 292kb)

To see what has and is being done so far, an update from the AQAP is available below here

 (word format, 177kb)