Croy has “good news” in the air

The village had problems with airborne particles arising from local quarrying activity.

It was designated an Air Quality Management Area in 2011 due to breaches of national air quality standards.

However, the reduction of quarrying in recent years has seen the pollution level drop to and remain at acceptable standards.

An order to revoke the monitoring was agreed by the council’s Environment and Transportation committee on Wednesday, August 26, in a development convener Michael McPake called “a good news story” for residents.

Addressing the committee, head of regulatory services Andrew McPherson said: “Since we declared that (the air quality monitoring) the quarry more or less ceased operations so for the past eight years we have been measuring the particulate matter in that area taking into account the fluctuations in quarrying activity and every single year since then we have measured below the national air quality levels so based on the evidence we have we really can’s justify the continuation of the air quality management area within Croy.

“It does not mean we will stop monitoring tomorrow – we will continue with it for a further year just to make sure the decision taken is the right one.”

Croy is now the third air quality area in North Lanarkshire to be revoked, having previously done the same in Harthill and Moodiesburn where levels were found to be high.

The latter had drawn comparisons with Glasgow’s Byres Road.

Cumbernauld Councillor William Goldie commented: “This is welcome, I’ve watched this over the last few years.”

The committee unanimously agreed to proceed with revoking the air quality monitoring in Croy but that if further problems ever arose, the matter would be re-examined.