Cheshire Police drop pollution data probe at council

A council audit found some air quality data had been falsified between 2012 and 2014

Police have dropped a long-running investigation into the alleged manipulation of pollution data at a council in Cheshire.

Cheshire East Council admitted in 2017 that some air quality data had been "falsified" between 2012 and 2014.

It led to hundreds of planning applications being reviewed.

Cheshire Constabulary said no further action was being taken and the matter had been referred back to the council after a "thorough investigation".

An audit carried out by the authority before police were involved concluded some air quality data had been "falsified" to make it look cleaner.

This may have led to different assessments of whether certain planning applications would be permissible under local pollution rules, the audit found.

It concluded human error was "unlikely" to have been responsible.

The council, however, rejected the idea that planning decisions would have been affected by the falsified data.

A Cheshire Police spokesman said: "Should any new information come to light, a further review may be undertaken".