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Improving air quality

Find out what we are doing to improve air quality in the borough.

Improving the quality of the all we all breath is a major priority for us. Improving air quality is one of our key targets in Building a Fairer Environment, one of the main pillars of our Fairer Westminster strategy.

On these webpages you can find out more about what we’re doing to improve air quality across Westminster. You can read our Air Quality Action Plan, visit our new real-time data platform, and learn more about what you can do to reduce your own environmental impacts and reduce your own exposure to harmful air pollution.

To help tackle this problem, we have put the following measures in place: 

  • Launching our new air quality data platform so you can see what pollution is like in your area.
  • Encouraging walking and cycling, and creating better infrastructure for electric and low-emission vehicles, we have the largest electric vehicle charging network in London.
  • Keeping pollution and emissions to a minimum when planning new developments and roads, including requiring developers to sign up to our best-in-class Code of Construction Practice.
  • Working with businesses to help them reduce their emissions through our Freight Servicing and Delivery Strategy. We’re also working closely with our contractors, such as Veolia, in helping them make the switch to electric waste vehicles.
  • Monitoring air quality across the city which helps shape policy to reduce pollution. Our air quality monitors also allow communities to see what pollution is like in their area. This helps encourage people to make changes to reduce their own emissions or their exposure to pollution, such as to walk via parks and quiet roads or get public transport instead of driving. We’ve supported several community groups to install monitors in their local areas.
  • Developing exciting new projects and schemes, from our Schools’ Clean Air Fund, to our indoor air quality pilot, to working on a new app to make it easy for residents to take quieter and less polluting routes when walking and cycling across the city.

Published: 18 December 2020

Last updated: 25 July 2023