'Clean air zone and e-bike trial improving air quality'

Bath was the first city outside London to introduce a Clean Air Zone

Air quality across Bath and North East Somerset is continuing to improve, two reports have concluded.

The Bath Clean Air Zone (CAZ) annual report compares 2023 data with 2019's. It shows average nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations within CAZ, which was introduced in 2021, are 32% lower.

Meanwhile, the 2024 air quality annual status report highlighted a range of schemes helping to improve pollution levels, including new cycle lanes and an e-bike trial.

Councillor Sarah Warren said: "It’s fantastic to see a fall in air pollution, which means we are all breathing cleaner air."

According to the CAZ study, in 2023 none of the 65 monitoring sites within CAZ recorded an annual average NO2 concentration greater than the legal limit, a reduction of 10 sites when compared to 2019.

However, the data also shows that NO2 levels were already going down before Bath’s CAZ was launched in March 2021.

Professor Eleonora Fichera from the University of Bath had done a similar study on the clean air zone in London.

"Comparing before and after the study doesn't always leave us an idea of what would have happened if the policy wasn't introduced. You would have to compare it to a similar city," she explained.

'Reassuring'

Ms Fichera added: "There are some controversies around CAZ, such as just moving the problem to another place. What happens when you introduce a CAZ, you are introducing an area that has particular boundaries.

"You worry the cars just drive around just outside the area so they don't have to change the car they use."

However, the council's study looks at those boundaries and has seen a reduction of NO2 there, too.

Since 2022, concentrations within the CAZ have fallen by 8%, and by 9% in the urban area outside the zone.

Councillor Sarah Warren said: “It’s reassuring that the CAZ is still working to improve air quality outside of the zone as well as within it, that non-compliance has decreased by 73% since 2021 and that 947 polluting vehicles have been replaced under our financial assistance scheme."

The 2024 air quality annual status report said the rollout of 300 e-scooters and 150 e-bikes, as well as new cycle lanes were helping to bring down pollution levels.

The council's ‘Kick the Habit’ campaign, aimed at reducing the number of drivers who leave their engines running when they were not moving, had also had a positive impact on pollution levels.