NO₂ is one of the principal pollutants that arise from road traffic. The Government expects concentrations of NO₂ from traffic sources to decline in future years because of advanced pollution control technology in vehicles (this is the case even though overall traffic numbers will increase).The monitoring is achieved via the use of NO₂ passive diffusion tubes. These are relatively low cost, plastic tubes which contain a prepared absorbent which can later be desorbed for analysis and measurement.

If you would like to report a smoky vehicle you can ring the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency on 0870 606 0440.

The air qualtiy in other towns and villages throughout South Hams have been monitored. For more information please contact the Council for more information. If you think there is an air quality issue from transportation in your area please let us know and we can look it.

Please click on the underlined towns to view graphs

Monitoring is currently undertaken alongside busy roads in Kingsbridge, Totnes ,Ivybridge and close to the A38 at Dean Prior.

The data given in the graphs are the basic results taken from analysis of the diffusion tubes every month.  When these data are converted to annual mean data, they have to be adjusted by a factor obtained from a number of studies over the relevant year which compares the accuracy of the tubes with more sophisticated monitoring techniques. Bias adjusted annual means for the monitoring sites shown in the graphs are given in the table below.

The annual average objective value given by the Government is 40 ug/m^3.

	Kingsbridge, Fore St	Totnes, Station Road	Totnes, Brigetown Hill	Ivybridge, Western Road	A38 Dean Prior
2006 bias adjusted annual average concentration (ug/m3)	34.8	34.2	36.2	42.4	66.9

The meanings of the abbreviations used in the graphs are as follows:

NO2	Nitrogen Dioxide
ug/m3	micrograms per cubic metre of air
Station rd	Station Road
B’town Hill	Bridgetown Hill
W’fields	Westonfields estate
W. Road	Western Road
D. Prior	Dean Prior