Camden continues to make progress on cleaner air for all
Camden Council has released its air quality Annual Status Report for 2025, with the latest monitoring data showing a continuing trend of air quality improvements and a notable success in Camden Town.
Confirmed and ratified data show that nitrogen dioxide (NO2) air pollution concentrations in 2025, have reduced on average by six percent across Camden’s automatic monitoring portfolio when compared to the previous year.
Improving air quality is one of our top priorities, and we have made significant progress in recent years. This includes helping to tackle air pollution through cleaner transport, stricter planning policies, electric vehicle infrastructure, and educational sessions reaching thousands of residents and schoolchildren.
We were the first local authority in the country to adopt World Health Organization (WHO) air quality standards, which go further than national legal limits and are working with our communities and partners in the borough and beyond to reduce sources of air pollution as quickly as possible.
The continued improvement to air quality is encouraging, especially the significant change recorded so far on Camden High Street, which directly relates to our trial pedestrianisation of this very busy section of highway.
The air quality monitoring station on Camden High Street has recorded a 27% reduction in NO2 concentrations from 2024’s annual average mean, decreasing from 26 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/ m3) to 19 µg/m3. This can be attributed to the closure of the busy section of Camden High Street between Britannia Junction and Jamestown Road and Hawley Crescent to all motor vehicles for a trial period of 18 months, commencing in May 2025.
Councillor Slater continued:
“Whilst we welcome this progress, we know there is still more to do. Too many people are still exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution. Whilst there has been a reduction in vehicle emissions, the same progress is not being made to tackle other sources of this pollutant and particulate matter emissions, such as commercial building heating systems - now the largest source of NOx in Camden.
“This is why we are continuing to work towards meeting WHO standards across the borough by 2034 and are calling for stronger national action to help improve air quality even further.”
Air quality progress in Camden
During 2025, Camden started diffusion tube monitoring at an additional 99 sites across the borough bringing the total number of monitored sites to 420 by the end of the year.
337 diffusion tube sites had sufficient data coverage to be included in the ASR. Of these, only three recorded an exceedance of the 40 µg/m3 legal limit for NO2, all of which are located along Euston Road, the busiest road for motor vehicles in Camden.
From 2019 to 2025 there has been an average reduction in annual NO2 concentration of 16 µg/m3 (42%) across the 90 sites where data is available for this duration. Ten of these long-term monitoring sites have had data collected since at least 2015 and have recorded an average 33 µg/m3 (56%) reduction during this time.
Confirmed and ratified data for 2025 show that nitrogen dioxide (NO2) air pollution concentrations remain on average ten percent lower across Camden’s automatic monitoring portfolio than in 2020, when the effects of the COVID pandemic resulted in significantly reduced motor traffic.
Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations have reduced on average by 1.33 µg/m3 (10%) across Camden’s automatic monitoring network since 2019.
On Camden’s journey to WHO levels, the council can report that:
- The Clean Air for Schools programme ran 50 different events in 2025, from whole-school assemblies to work experience workshops, engaging a total of 4,844 young people aged 4 to 17.
- The London Anti-idling project is led by Camden with the ambition to reduce unnecessary vehicle engine idling via an awareness raising campaign, which will inform the public about the health impacts exposure to engine idling has on the most vulnerable people in our communities.
- In 2025, the public campaign tagged ‘Engine off, every stop’ achieved over 75 million combined impact impressions across all platforms. This represents impressive levels of public community engagement within Camden and across London.
- As of the end of 2025, 100% of Camden Council’s vehicle fleet was ULEZ compliant. 25% of the fleet is electrically powered, an 11% increase from the previous year.
A new Clean Air Action Plan for Camden
We are currently developing a new Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP) to act as a roadmap and guide for delivering air quality improvements from 2027-2030 for everyone who lives, works, and studies in or visits Camden. The new Plan is designed build on our successes so far, whilst covering a wider range of pollution sources and featuring a greater focus on indoor air quality, as well as including measures to strengthen our resilience to air pollution incidents linked to the climate crisis.
The proposed Council’s draft new CAAP is currently open to public consultation, and we are keen to hear feedback and ideas from the public. The draft new Plan which can be viewed here: Camden Clean Air Action Plan 2027-2030 - We Are Camden - Citizen SpaceHave Your Say Today - Clean Air Camden - Commonplace
Our automatic air quality monitoring data can be found on the London Borough of Camden - Air Quality monitoring service and our diffusion tube data can be viewed on our Open Data platform.
If you are interested in hearing regular updates from Camden’s Air Quality team, you can sign up to our bi-monthly newsletter here: https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/UKLBC/subscriber/new
Further information about our air quality work can be found online at: https://www.camden.gov.uk/air-quality