Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government which organisation is responsible for the monitoring and collection of pollution data in and around Heathrow airport.

As I said in my answer to PQ HL7316 on 5 April this year, air quality monitoring data collected in and around Heathrow Airport is presented on the Heathrow AirWatch website which is funded via a joint working partnership consisting of Heathrow Airport Ltd, London Boroughs of Hillingdon and Hounslow, Slough and Spelthorne Borough Councils and British Airways. It is managed by the consultant Ricardo Energy and Environment.

Two local monitoring sites are included in the Government’s national monitoring network (the Automatic Urban and Rural Network). All national air quality monitoring data is available on the Government’s UK-Air website.

The two monitoring sites are London Hillingdon which is located in a suburban residential area approximately 30 metres from the M4 motorway and London Harlington which is located close to a minor road to the east of Harlington village.