On Friday 11th March 2011 the EU commission announced that it would be granting additional time for London to comply with EU Limit Values for PM₁₀. These must now be attained by 11th June 2011. However, predicted PM₁₀ concentrations for London in 2011 are only just below the Limit Value and the Commission considers there may still be a risk of the daily limit value being exceeded in the future. The granting of additional time is therefore conditional on the introduction of plans to control short-term air pollution episodes in London. These additional plans need to be in place by 11th June 2011.

The press release detailing the Commission’s decision can be found at:
europa.eu and and the full decision can be found at:
ec.europa.eu.

This year London has experienced a series of PM₁₀ episodes during February and March. For the year up to 13th March 2011, the Marylebone Road monitoring site has measured 15 days with mean PM₁₀ above 50 ug m-3 which is over one third of the EU Limit of 35 days. Fewer days were measured during the comparable period last year (nine) but the results for 2011 so far are broadly in line with the 2004/2010 average (thirteen days).

Our near neighbour Paris has procedures to control pollution episodes (airparif.asso.fr) whereas Berlin has moved away from episode control, for practical and scientific reasons, and introduced a Low Emission Zone (berlin.de).

Although the Mayor is trialling the use of dust suppressants to control PM₁₀ concentrations along side busy roads in central London, the control of pollution episodes have not been a feature of air pollution management in the UK. Instead the emphasis in UK air quality plans is placed on controlling air pollution all of the time rather than reacting to changing conditions.

Item date 14/03/2011