Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment she has made of trends in the level of air pollution in (a) the UK and (b) Carshalton and Wallington constituency.

Air quality is generally improving in the UK, as set out in the annual National Statistics report at the following URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/air-quality-statistics.

There are 171 automatic national monitoring stations producing hourly air quality measurements in the UK operated by the Environment Agency on behalf of Defra. Near real-time measurements from these sites and further data tools can be found on the UK-AIR website (https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk).

There are no automatic national monitoring stations in Carshalton and Wallington constituency. However, the London Borough of Sutton also assesses air quality using three automatic monitors within the constituency boundary: two are industrial monitoring stations at Beddington Lane, and the other site is a roadside site in central Wallington. Near real-time measurements from these sites can be found on the London Air website which is managed by King’s College London (http://londonair.org.uk). Air quality is improving at all three sites, with only the Wallington site providing an exceedance of the annual mean limit value for nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) in 2019 (based on provisional data).

The Borough also uses 15 passive monitors to measure NO₂ within the constituency boundaries; measurements are made available through Annual Status Reports (https://www.sutton.gov.uk/info/200497/pollution/1232/air_pollution/3). Only two exceedances of the annual mean limit value for NO₂ were observed in 2018 (at Rosehill Roundabout and London Road, Hackbridge) with levels at most sites either showing a lower or similar value compared with 2017 levels.