Milnrow drivers come clean

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 25th Sep 2007

Wera Hobhouse - Campaigning for cleaner air!

Drivers are being praised for helping to keep the air in Milnrow cleaner after spot checks on sixty-five cars showed they all met anti-pollution standards.

Rochdale Borough Council invited the Greater Manchester Cleaner Vehicles Campaign to Milnrow to carry out spot checks on car exhaust fumes and help raise awareness of the harmful effects of badly polluting vehicles.

Drivers travelling through air quality management areas, which includes all the main roads in the borough, are now legally required to ensure that their cars do not exceed the emission standards that applied when the car was first registered.

Cabinet member for the environment and sustainability, Councillor Wera Hobhouse said: "Excessive smoke from cars affects our environment, air quality and even our health. I am very pleased that all the sixty-five vehicles tested met the standard, but would encourage all drivers to keep their cars regularly serviced, so that we maintain these high standards through the winter months when air pollution traditionally gets worse."

In the coming months, the Cleaner Vehicles Campaign will be encouraging drivers, who stop at the roadside to talk or wait for someone, to switch off their engines.

Rochdale Borough Council's Environmental Control Manager, Andy Gumbley said: "Drivers who switch off their engines when stationary not only save money, their cars give off less nitrogen dioxide and particulates linked to respiratory illnesses, fewer petrol stops mean less benzene, a carcinogen, is released into the atmosphere, and less CO2, which is an important climate change gas, is produced."