Air Quality and Pollution

Air Quality in the City of Lincoln

Under the Environment Act 1995, we are required to regularly review and assess air quality within our area against national air quality objectives for key pollutants.  

We produce annual reports on the state of air quality within the city, which now also provide updates on any improvement measures.

In order to keep a check on air quality, we maintain a number of monitoring sites for nitrogen dioxide and particulates throughout the city.

For areas in the city where the air quality is not likely to meet the required objectives we have to declare an Air Quality Management Area (AQMA). We then produce an action plan that seeks to identify ways in which the air quality can be improved within that area.

We currently have one AQMA, which relates to nitrogen dioxide and is concentrated around the principal road network in the city centre due to the main source of this pollutant being road transport.  However, even within the boundaries of this AQMA we have not identified any breaches of the national air quality objectives since 2018.

You can download a copy of the Air Quality Management Area Order and associated map, as well as our latest Annual Status Report, from the downloads section on this page.

Air Quality Actions 

We currently have an interim Air Quality Action Plan in place, which outlines a number of measures to improve air quality. Progress on implementing these and other measures is reported each year in the Annual Status Report.  A copy of the interim Action Plan is also available in the download section.

Downloads

Report an Air Quality Problem 

In addition to our local air quality management role, we also investigate incidents that can have an impact on air quality.   

If you think there is an issue with pollution or air quality in Lincoln being impacted by a premises or business, you can report this to us online.

Report it >

Report an air quality problem