The latest results for Chippenham Air Quality February 2025 are now in…
Unfortunately our Wood Lane Air Quality Monitor has been out of action due to a wifi router change, but will hopefully be back in action in a few days. Our Rowden Hill monitor has also missed a couple of weeks due to flat batteries, but is now recharged and back online.
The latter half of the schools half term break showed an improvement in Air Quality on both Marshfield Road and Langley Road with PM2.5 particulate pollutants halving in the period to the tale end of half term. This seems to show a correlation to traffic on the roads, though it lags from the decrease in traffic.
Langley Road
The average across the month for PM2.5 pollutants was 21.3ug/m3. This is above the UK government recommended safe level of 20ug/m3 annual average, and is significantly above World Health organisation (WHO) guidelines of 5ug/m3.
During the end of half term week Friday 21st to Friday 28th the average PM2.5 level dropped to 10.6ug/m3, still above WHO guidelines, but within UK government limits. High peaks continued to be observed in the Langley Road levels, though these smoothed out during half term, indicating perhaps these are due to queuing traffic that frequently backs up as far as the monitor.
Marshfield Road
The Marshfield Road PM2.5 average of 22.88ug/m3 also exceeded UK government safe limits. Similarly half term week showed a significant improvement in air quality towards the end of the week, with the average halving Friday 21st to Friday 28th to a PM2.5 of 11.4ug/m3. However the decrease in pollution has a lag compared with half term timing leading to some doubt in direct attribution to traffic the traffic decrease. It doesn’t seem to correlate to air pressure or temperature.
Note the first section of graph until Feb 1st should be ignored.
Rowden Hill
We have a limited set of data for Rowden Hill due to flat batteries. However the average PM2.5 23rd Jan to 9th Feb was 13.6ug/m3, which is an improvement on previous averages. The data does however show peaks much higher than acceptable limits.
Conclusions
The data for Langley Road and Marshfield Road correlates with a 50% improvement in Air Quality for PM2.5 particulates to the end of the February half term week. Though it doesn’t correlate exactly with half term week. This could be as a result of less traffic on these two busy roads during half term leading to a decrease in pollution near the end of half term, but the time lag adds some doubt to this conclusion.
Why are PM2.5 pollutants of concern in Chippenham?
We are seeing a multitude of effects from this pollution, from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to asthma, and it’s affecting people at very low levels,” said Gregory Wellenius, an environmental scientist at the Boston University School of Public Health and co-author of the second paper. “This is affecting everyone, not just children and the elderly. It’s every age.”
The small particles of PM2.5 are primarily given off through the combustion of fossil fuels used by cars, trucks, power plants and industrial processes. The particles can also be emitted as a result of wildfires, which in some places are getting fiercer due to the climate crisis. When inhaled, the particles are lodged in the lungs, leading to a myriad of health problems.
The dangers posed by such pollution have been known for some time – according to previous research, about 5 million people a year, worldwide, die as a result from fossil fuel air pollution. Air and water pollution, together, account for one in six deaths across the planet.