Some of the most polluted high streets in Bristol have been revealed on Clean Air Day using data linked to postcodes.
High streets are the beating heart of most communities in the UK but they're also under threat from changing habits predominantly caused by a movement towards online shopping. But with 36,000 deaths linked to air pollution in the UK each year - how safe is it to be traipsing up and down the high street on a regular basis?
Stokes Croft is the high street area with some of the worst levels of air quality in the city. It's on the A38, one of the main roads north of the city centre, and therefore has both high levels of traffic and footfall. Two roads in Easton made it in the top ten high streets with very high levels of air pollution, which is not only harmful for the environment but damaging to our health if we're breathing in bad quality air regularly.
Also see: Air pollution in areas home to some of city's biggest attractions
The data has been collected by addresspollution.org and offers a free air quality report when you enter a UK postcode. It ranks every address in the UK in percentiles according to its air pollution levels relative to postcodes across the whole country - see our previous analysis of Bristol attractions and their air quality levels.
Bristol Live has followed a 2011 Bristol City Council document called the Core Strategy to identify what it classes as a high street in the city area, in which 47 streets are identified.
It's worth noting the council classes the city centre as one high street, even though it encompasses many different streets such as Stokes Croft and Old Market. We entered individual postcodes for the different pockets of the city centre to measure which specific streets had the highest levels of air pollution. Here are the first ten roads in Bristol that have the highest levels of air pollution:
- Stokes Croft (Bristol City Centre)
- Stapleton Road (Easton)
- Wells Road (Totterdown)
- Two Mile Hill Road (Two Mile Hill)
- Filton Road (Filton)
- Church Road (Lawrence Hill)
- Queen's Road (Clifton)
- Lodge Causeway (Fishponds)
- Gloucester Road (Bishopston)
- St Mark's Road (Easton)
Click here if you cannot see the survey
The Symes shopping area in Hartcliffe and Church Road in Bishopsworth were ranked at the bottom with the cleanest air in the Bristol area.
Clean Air Day is the UK's largest air pollution campaign designed to unite communities, businesses, schools and the health sector. Clean air is essential for our health, and the co-benefits of clean air measures are also good for our well-being as well as being important for the planet.
Both Stokes Croft and a small part of Wells Road are in Bristol’s Clean Air Zone which is expected to be operating later this year. It is being introduced in the city to improve air quality by reducing harmful levels of air pollution caused by traffic and to "make sure everyone benefits from a healthy and natural environment", as stated on the council's website.
Test cameras for the Clean Air Zone have started going up around Bristol, the council has revealed. It was recently announced that the scheme has once again been delayed and will now be launched towards the end of the year. Mayor Marvin Rees said that the launch delay was down to a “national issue with bus lanes”.
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