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Air Quality Action Plan 2017-2021

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The consultation has now closed.

Improving air quality in Barnet is vitally important, and in common with all London boroughs, Barnet continues to exceed national targets for air pollution. Over the last twenty five years we have made excellent progress on improving air quality in Barnet. Highlights of successful projects delivered through the previous action plan include:

  • Environmental Health have regularly inspected all of the borough’s permitted processes over the last 12 years, contributing to greatly reduced local emissions from industry and businesses.
  • Air Quality Champion (2014-2016) project funded by the Mayor’s Air Quality Fund

So that we can continue to improve air quality across

Improving air quality in Barnet is vitally important, and in common with all London boroughs, Barnet continues to exceed national targets for air pollution. Over the last twenty five years we have made excellent progress on improving air quality in Barnet. Highlights of successful projects delivered through the previous action plan include:

  • Environmental Health have regularly inspected all of the borough’s permitted processes over the last 12 years, contributing to greatly reduced local emissions from industry and businesses.
  • Air Quality Champion (2014-2016) project funded by the Mayor’s Air Quality Fund

So that we can continue to improve air quality across the borough we have produced a new draft Air Quality Action Plan 2017- 2022 (AQAP) which is also part of the council’s duty to contribute to London Local Air Quality Management.

This new plan builds on our previous plan and outlines the steps the council will take from 2017 to 2022 to improve air quality across the borough. The plan gives details on how the council will:

  • continue to meet its statutory obligations for managing air quality;
  • work across many council services and with partners to minimise emissions from transport, existing buildings, and new developments, including Brent Cross and other regeneration projects within the borough;
  • continue to raise awareness of air quality issues to the public and encourage residents to do their bit to reduce levels of pollution and raise awareness of the importance to reduce their exposure to poor air quality; and
  • work in partnership with others to press for more action to be taken at all levels of government.

We are now consulting with residents on the contents and the actions we have identified in our draft Air Quality Action Plan 2017 - 2022. To find out more about our proposals please take the time to read the full Air Quality Action Plan 2017 - 2021 here.

Why we are consulting

Our draft Air Quality Action Plan will ensure we can continue to monitor how we are doing and sets out clear targets on what we want to achieve by 2022.

Before we finalise the draft plan we want to give residents the opportunity to have their say to ensure the plan is appropriate for all our local communities.

The consultation is open to everyone and asks your views on the overall document, its actions and how we can all support this work.

Give us your views

Please take the time to read our draft Air Quality Action Plan and then give us your views by completing our short online questionnaire. If you require this consultation in an alternative format please contact scientificservices@barnet.gov.uk.


The consultation has now closed.

  • We Asked, You Said, We Did

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    We asked

    We asked residents for their views on the Council’s Draft Air Quality Action Plan 2017-2022

    You said

    We received 73 responses to the consultation.

    80% of respondents said that they felt poor air quality is an issue in Barnet to a great extent. The most common themes were concerns about air quality affecting heath, the sheer volume of traffic on Barnet’s roads, congestion, the lack of cycling infrastructure, and the general unpleasantness of walking due to traffic fumes.

    Most respondents (over 85%) agreed with the air pollution sources that the action plan will focus on, and over 70% felt that the plan was easy to understand. With respects to the proposed actions to improve air quality, there was strong support, particularly for increased green barriers and trees, anti-idling projects and work with schools on travel planning. The action with most disagreement was introducing 20mph speed limits close to schools as a measure to improve air quality where 11% of respondents strongly disagreed.

    We asked residents for their own suggestions and ideas on improving air quality. Many respondents said there were simply too many vehicles on the roads and that cycling, walking and public transport needs to be incentivised. Many respondents cited the extra traffic generated by increased housing being built in the Borough as a key concern. Idling vehicles, particularly outside schools was also a strong theme.

    Ideas included segregated cycle routes for commuters and advanced stop lines for cyclists at junctions; better maintenance of walking paths; tackling the school run; banning bonfires entirely in residential areas; closing off local “rat-runs”; education campaign to move to cleaner more efficient boilers in the home; limiting the use of wood-burning stoves; educational campaigns to get people to reduce their reliance on the private car.

    We did

    All of the proposed actions will go forward to the new air quality action plan 2017-2022. We will focus more strongly on the actions promoting sustainable transport as a result of the consultation exercise. We will consider the other new ideas including actions around wood-burning stoves, bonfires, better cycling infrastructure and promotion of efficient boilers through the air quality steering group process.