London enters third week of January without breaching legal air quality limits for first time in 10 years

London today entered the third week of January without breaching legal air quality limits for the first time since modern records began.

Every year for the last decade the city’s toxic air has exceeded legal hourly pollution cap for nitrogen dioxide within the first few days of the new year.

Putney High Street, Oxford Street and Brixton Road are among the pollution “hotspots” that have usually broken the limit by 6 January at the latest.

The hourly limit for NO2 is still likely to be exceeded later this month but later than usual as a result of anti-pollution measures and blustery, wet weather so far this year.

There has to be a recording of 18 hours of very high pollution levels at any individual monitoring site across London to exceed legal limits.

As of today, the hourly average of 200 ug/m3 NO2 has only hit a maximum of 8 hours - five in Brixton, two in Putney and one at Park Lane, Croydon.

Mayor Sadiq Khan claimed partial responsibility for the improvement, pointing to measures he has introduced such as the T-charge for older, more polluting cars.

New low-emission bus zones have also had an impact - in Putney reducing the number of hours breaching legal limits by more than 90 per cent on the previous year.

He said: “At long last we are seeing some improvements in our toxic air, but much more needs to be done before Londoners can finally breathe a proper sigh of relief.”