{"id":170696,"date":"2025-06-09T16:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T16:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/170696\/"},"modified":"2025-06-09T16:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T16:33:11","slug":"i-couldnt-be-happier-traffic-changes-bring-cleaner-air-to-york-pollution-blackspot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/170696\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I couldn\u2019t be happier!\u2019 Traffic changes bring cleaner air to York pollution blackspot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rising numbers of electric buses were among the factors which led to a large drop in emissions in what was previously York\u2019s most-polluted location, a council official has said.<\/p>\n

A City of York Council meeting heard the expansion of its electric vehicle fleet and an anti-idling campaign also contributed to the fall in air pollution in Gillygate and across the city.<\/p>\n

Council public protection officer Mike Southcombe said air pollution in Gillygate and across York falling below legal limits for the first time since the Covid pandemic was very positive.<\/p>\n

Steve Lilley, of the Gillygate Air Quality Action Group, said they were pleased with the improvements and looked forward to seeing the results of an ongoing traffic signalling trial there.<\/p>\n

It comes as council data showed NO2 emissions at the Gillygate and Bootham junction fell by 27 per cent from\u00a043\u00b5g\/m3 in 2023, above the legal limit of 40\u00b5g\/m3.<\/p>\n

The stretch of Blossom Street near its junction with Queen Street had the highest concentration of NO2 representative of long-term exposure in York in 2024 at\u00a032.4\u00b5g\/m3.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s yearly air quality report also showed particulate matter, PM10 and PM2.5, remained below legal limits in 2024 but levels were up slightly compared to 2023.<\/p>\n

\"\" Cllr Jenny Kent on Bootham. Photograph: Supplied<\/p>\n

Council official Mr Southcombe said the fall in Gillygate was due to a combination of factors but the largest contributor was the expansion of First\u2019s electric bus fleet.<\/p>\n

York was the first city outside London to have an operator with a wholly-electric bus fleet.<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s Coun Jenny Kent, the council\u2019s environment spokesperson, said 60 per cent of the authority\u2019s vehicles weighing under 3.5 tonnes were now electric.<\/p>\n

She added grants totalling \u00a3105,000 to help taxi drivers by low or zero emissions vehicles had also helped bring air pollution down.<\/p>\n

Coun Kent said: \u201cWe hope that will be nearly 100 per cent by the end of the year and we\u2019ve taken measures to encourage people to turn off their engines while stationary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t be happier to see these results, it\u2019s been a joint effort.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rising numbers of electric buses were among the factors which led to a large drop in emissions in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-170696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114654373702151467","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}