‘Clean Up Our Air’ initiative launched in Buckinghamshire

Clean Air Day, the UK’s largest campaign on air pollution happened on Friday 15th June 2023.

To coincide with Clean Air Day, Buckinghamshire Council is launching a new initiative called, ‘Clean Up Our Air’.

The council has installed five new air quality monitoring sensors, each outside a school. Local groups, including Community Boards, will have access to the monitoring data as well as resources to help them raise awareness of air quality within their local community. This project has been funded by a Defra Air Quality Grant.

The main aim of the Clean Up Our Air initiative is to:

• To educate residents, businesses, and visitors to the area on how they can reduce emissions.
• To give a basic understanding on dispersion and how this information can be used to reduce exposure to air pollution.
• To inform local people about what the council are doing to reduce air pollution in their area and how volunteers, schools, local groups and community boards can help.
• Get an appreciation of co-benefits, such as increase in wellbeing and a reduction in impact on Climate Change.

Gareth Williams, Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Environment at Buckinghamshire Council, said: ‘Clean air is good for both our physical and mental health, which is why it’s vitally important to us to reduce air pollution in the county – especially around our schools.

Thanks to a Defra Air Quality Grant award, we launched the Air Quality Toolkits project, which provides participating Community Boards with materials to enable them, local schools and organisations to carry out campaigns and to raise awareness of local air quality issues.

The results from the sensors will help to illustrate and monitor the impact of campaigns carried out during the year. The toolkits will also improve participants’ knowledge about air quality and educate on what steps individuals can take to reduce their exposure to air pollution.

Looking to the future, we are constantly exploring new ways to improve air quality in the county, and we are committed to achieving our goal of reducing Buckinghamshire’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2050.‘

Learn more about air quality by visiting Buckinghamshire Council’s Air Quality webpage. And find out more about Clean Air Day and what you can do locally by visiting the Clean Air Day website.

*Source of information : Press release from Buckinghamshire Council.