About the plan – Air Quality Action Plan for Sandy consultation
Consultation closed: Tuesday 12 August 2025
Consultation opened: Thursday 17 July 2025
What area does the air quality action plan (AQAP) cover?
The Sandy Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) covers an area 10 metres wide, either side of the A1 between Bedford Road (A603) roundabout and the Georgetown exit. The A1 is a national trunk route with heavy daily traffic, which runs close to residential properties limiting the natural reduction in pollution levels with distance from the source. It was declared an action plan area in 2019 due to exceedances at the time of both the annual and hourly air quality objectives for nitrogen dioxide.
What does the air quality action plan include?
The AQAP outlines how we plan to effectively tackle air quality issues in Sandy within our control. However, we recognise that there are many air quality policy areas that are outside of our influence (such as vehicle emissions standards agreed in Europe), but for which we may have useful evidence. So, we will continue to work with regional and central government on policies and issues that are beyond our direct influence.
The AQAP measures presented in the draft AQAP report will again target the major source of pollution for Sandy, which is road transportation.
The AQAP includes measures that can be considered under 8 broad topics:
- promoting low emissions transport
- promoting sustainable travel alternatives
- environmental permitting
- transport planning and infrastructure
- freight and delivery action
- policy guidance and development control
- vehicle fleet efficiency
- public information
Out of these we have established 4 key priorities:
Priority 1 – to promote active and sustainable travel enabling a modal shift away from the use of private vehicles (cars), partly through the implementation of the local cycling and walking infrastructure plan (LCWIP) for Sandy.
Priority 2 – to promote the take up of electric vehicles (EV) and ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEV) by developing the EV charging infrastructure.
Priority 3 – implementation of Freight Strategy 2024, to ensure it is adopted into our policies and strategies.
Priority 4 – to develop a cohesive Local Transport Plan TP4, using policies/documents such as the Freight Strategy (2024) and the LCWIPs.
The AQAP will be reviewed every 5 years at the latest, and progress on measures set out within this plan will be reported annually within our annual status report.