Olympic legacy continues with Clean Air for London

The Olympic legacy is set to continue in London thanks to Clean Air for London, who will initiate the city's biggest ever air quality monitoring exercise.

London has come under constant pressure over its air pollution record, and organisers of this year's Games were fully aware that their sustainability legacy would have to incorporate air quality at some level. In light of this, researchers from around the country have initiated one of the most extensive air monitoring campaigns on record, which is set to continue long after the Games have finished.

Meteorologists from universities including Reading, Manchester, Birmingham, York, Leeds, Hertfordshire, East Anglia, and Leicester are involved in the three-year Clean Air for London project, monitoring ozone and particulate levels. The researchers hope that air quality improvements will be part of an Olympic legacy, which has already altered the landscape in several parts of the capital.

Six shipping containers worth of equipment have been set up in the playground of a North Kensington school to monitor pollutants.

There is also equipment on top of the BT Tower which has been positioned to monitor above ground air quality, as well as mapping air flow, moisture and chemistry to see the effect they have on air pollution at street level.

Dr Janet Barlow, reader in Urban Meteorology at Reading University, said: "The current sunny weather is a welcome departure from all the rain we’ve been having, but it brings with it its own problems. Met Office pollution forecasts are showing smog in London this week will be the worst it has been since May.

"Levels of ozone are forecast to exceed European and Defra safety thresholds – the threshold value for protection of human health, beyond which Defra advises adults and children with lung problems, and adults with heart problems, who experience symptoms, to consider reducing strenuous physical activity, particularly outdoors."

Posted by Claire Manning