London broke its annual air pollution limit last Thursday, just five days into 2017. UK law states that hourly levels of toxic nitrogen dioxide (NO2) must not exceed 200 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3) more than 18 times in a whole year, yet this limit was reached and broken on 5th January on Brixton Road in Lambeth. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise however, when you take a look at last year’s air pollution statistics for Brixton Road: in 2016 it broke the hourly limit 502 times.
It is expected that many other London hotspots will also frequently break the limit throughout the year. London’s Putney High Street broke the hourly limits 1,221 times last year, vastly exceeding the permitted 18 annual breaches, and many other busy areas such as Kings Road, Oxford Street and the Strand struggled with the limit, and will continue to do so this year.
Continue reading London breached its annual air pollution limit in five days
