Content

To revoke the Cowfold Air Quality Management
Area.

Reasons for the decision

The
Council declared “Cowfold Air
Quality Management Area”
an
Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) in 2011 due to
measured exceedances of the annual mean nitrogen
dioxide
(NO2) air quality
objective.
 
The
Council has been monitoring NO2 in Cowfold since 2008.
Currently, there are nine diffusion tubes in Cowfold, of which
five are within the AQMA. There has been no exceedance
of
the
objectives since 2020 and concentrations in 2019 were
only
marginally over 10% of the annual mean NO2 objective
(36.1
?g/m3). The Council is
satisfied that the objectives will continue
to
be met at all locations in the future and proposed to
revoke
the
AQMA in its 2025 Air Quality Annual Status Report (ASR).
DEFRA has also confirmed that the Council must revoke
the
AQMA.

Alternative options considered

Not
to revoke the Horsham Cowfold AQMA.
This was rejected
in
order to comply with paragraph 3.61 of the Local Air
Quality
Management Technical Guidance (TG22) issued by DEFRA
in
May
2025 which states that there “should not
be any declared
AQMAs for which compliance with the relevant objective
has
been achieved for a consecutive five-year period”.
This was
reiterated by DEFRA in its
appraisal of the Council’s 2025 ASR.