Cambridge: new air-quality strategy for city wins approval

The strategy document said traffic on Cambridge's roads was a main contributor of gases harming air quality

A five-year plan to make the air in Cambridge cleaner has been put together as councillors said there was "no safe level of air pollution".

Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council have set out a joint strategy to reduce pollution across the areas.

Councillors in Cambridge said there was still more to be done to improve air quality in the city.

The city council endorsed the strategy at a meeting this week.

Rosy Moore, executive councillor for climate action and environment, said the city now met the legal standards for air quality. However, she believed the new strategy would help the authorities to be "more ambitious".

She said: "We should not be kidding ourselves that just because we are achieving the national targets that our air is good enough.

"It is good to note things have improved but there is still a way to go."

The strategy document highlighted traffic on Cambridge's roads as being the the main contributor of nitrogen-dioxide emissions.

To address it, the plan set out a number of points including supporting public transport, consolidating freight and looking at last-mile deliveries, improving cycling and walking routes, and encouraging people to use "green infrastructure".

The report said: "Greater Cambridge is a major growth area with large-scale development and population increase coming forward in the next 10 to 20 years.

"This strategy seeks to strike a balance in supporting the productivity, economy and prosperity of Greater Cambridge, whilst continuing to deliver improvements in air quality and the positive health outcomes that improved air quality will deliver for both residents and visitors to the Greater Cambridge area."

Officers said air quality in the city had improved over the past 30 years and said the authority could do more to highlight how much progress had been made.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service reported that the environment and community scrutiny committee voted unanimously on behalf of the full council to support the new strategy, which it proposed should be in place until 2029.