Air quality management reviews and annual reports

We have a legal responsibility as a council to monitor and report on air quality in our region.

In areas where the objectives are not met, Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) are declared to improve air quality.

You can view our map to see the AQMAs and monitoring sites within our area.

Where Air Quality Management Areas are declared, we have to produce an Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP). The aim of this is to reduce concentrations within those AQMAs to below the government's objectives. Progress on all Air Quality Action Plans are published annually in the Annual Status Reports mentioned below.

The AQAPs developed by the legacy council areas for their respective air quality management areas have been reviewed and consolidated into a single AQAP for Buckinghamshire. This AQAP now supersedes all previous versions for the Buckinghamshire Council area.

View the updated Air Quality Action Plan.

Defra states that if no air quality exceedances have been recorded within an Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) in the previous five years, including during the Covid-19 pandemic, local authorities must withdraw the AQMA.

Subsequently, the AQMA No. 1 (M40), Chesham, South Bucks (M25, M40 and M4) and Tring Road (Aylesbury) AQMAs were revoked in January 2025. The revocation orders are available here:

• AQMA Revocation Order M40
• AQMA Revocation Order Chesham
• AQMA Revocation Order South Bucks
• AQMA Revocation Order Tring Road

We submit an Annual Status Report (ASR) annually to Defra for appraisal.

The report contains:

• the concentrations of pollution measured in the previous calendar year
• how this compared to previous years
• what we have been doing to improve air quality in the area, including progress on the Air Quality Action Plans

View the report summary and the Annual Status Report 2024.

View our previous reports and documents:

• Buckinghamshire Council Annual Status Report 2023
• Buckinghamshire Council Annual Status Report 2022
• Buckinghamshire Council Annual Status Report 2021
• Passive Diffusion Tube Monitoring Results

Select your former district area to view Annual Status Reports from previous years.

To see how we aim to achieve net-zero for carbon emissions for Buckinghamshire as a whole by 2050, view our Climate Change and Air Quality Strategy.

Visit Global Action Plan’s Clean Air Hub for further information on:

• what local air pollution is
• what we can do to reduce emissions
• what we can do to reduce our own exposure to air pollution