Air quality
Dirty air is a major cause of ill health and early death in our communities.
In towns and cities, road vehicles are the main source of air pollution. This can contribute to a wide range of illnesses and conditions, including lung and heart diseases, some cancers, strokes and asthma too. Air pollution contributes to the equivalent of 1,200 deaths a year in Greater Manchester. While more research is needed, recent studies have also linked poor air quality to dementia and thinking ability.
Clean Air GM
The Greater Manchester local authorities work together to review and report on the quality of the air we breathe. We also work together to plan and deliver actions to improve our air quality. The Clean Air Greater Manchester website provides detailed information regarding air quality in our region including the following.
- Types of pollution.
- How pollution affects your health.
- Top tips to avoid and reduce pollution.
- How we're improving air quality.
- GM strategies, action plans and reports about air quality.
Visit the Clean Air GM website
Air pollution levels in Bury
We measure air quality at eleven locations in our borough. Three sites use very accurate automatic monitoring equipment that measure nitrogen dioxide and fine particles (PM10) in real time. We also have eight sites where we use simple and reasonably accurate equipment called diffusion tubes to measure nitrogen dioxide on a monthly basis. The monthly readings are used to give an annual average (mean) level of nitrogen dioxide.
The location and annual average results from our monitoring stations are provided in the documents below.
Auto monitoring sites and diffusion tubes 2017 [1Mb] Bury air quality monitoring results in 2018 [97kb]