The Greater London Authority recently commissioned Air Quality Consultants to undertake a strategic review of London’s air quality monitoring network, a key proposal in the Mayor’s Air Quality Strategy.

This is the first time such a review has been undertaken and the results provide an important benchmark in the development of London’s monitoring network.

The review set out to define the current and future roles of the network and to identify key sites and any gaps in monitoring coverage in the network.

The main findings of the report were:

• The LAQN is used by many different organisations in a variety of ways and whilst it provides an important strategic resource for local and central government, it is funded and organised almost entirely by the participation of the individual London boroughs.
• The majority of sites in the network were identified as Category A (critical to the network) with a significant number classified as Category B (plays an important role) and a small number as Category C (a limited role)
• The network has generally good coverage for the measurement of the main pollutants but a number of locations where additional monitoring would be beneficial have been identified.

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Item date 15/06/2011