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What is Community Air Quality Monitoring? East End Quality of Life Initiative works with the Environmental Strategy Service of Sheffield City Council – who are responsible for measuring air pollution across the city – and with Sheffield Primary Care Trust to maintain the current programme of pollution measurement in partnership with local communities. |
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History of Community Air Quality Monitoring in Sheffield Community Air Quality Monitoring of nitrogen dioxide in Sheffield started in 1998 in people’s backyards in Tinsley using diffusion tubes which are changed every month. It began because local people were concerned about the effects of air pollution on their health and quality of life. The community air quality monitoring network has been extended to cover other communities in the city, involving Community Partners such as local forums, environmental groups, neighbourhood watch groups, and secondary schools. |
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| No monitoring in your area? East End Quality of Life Initiative welcomes enquiries from community groups who would like to monitor their local air quality. Contact Neil Parry on 0114 2859911. Download the flyer for more information. |
| Feedback, discussion notes and Andy Elleker's report from the Community Air Quality Monitoring Workshop held on 21 November 2007 are available here. |
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Why do local communities participate ? · Community organisations are well placed to know the locations in their neighbourhoods where residents are concerned about air pollution. · This brings the issue of air pollution down to the local level. · It empowers local communities to better articulate their concerns about poor air quality, traffic and its effects on the community’s health and quality of life. |
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What do community organisations do each month? East End Quality of Life Initiative supports groups to get the local pollution monitoring set up. Every month on a set day decided by the community volunteers, they change the diffusion tubes. The tube details (batch number, tube number, site, date and time of change over) are written on a log sheet and sent with the exposed tubes to the laboratory for analysis. Before the set date in the next month unexposed tubes are sent to each group. This process takes no more than one hour per month. The results are sent to groups every month, usually in the form of a chart, or the full dataset if required. |
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What does it cost? Sheffield’s Environmental Strategy Service has obtained funding from DEFRA to pay for the diffusion tubes analysis since 2003, and some of Sheffield City Council’s Area Panels have contributed to help community organisations with the monitoring. |