Guides · 2026-11-04
Air quality in Nottinghamshire: which places have a declared air quality management area nearby?
Councils must declare an air quality management area where national air quality objectives are unlikely to be met. 27 of the 127 places with a PlaceFit page in Nottinghamshire and Nottingham have one crossing the area around them.
Air quality is hard to judge on a viewing. One official marker you can check is whether the council has declared an air quality management area near the home you are looking at.
What an air quality management area is
Every UK council has to review air quality in its area. If it finds places where the national air quality objectives are not likely to be met, it must declare an air quality management area there and put together a plan to improve it. Defra notes an area can be just one or two streets, or much bigger.
Where they are in Nottinghamshire
Of the 127 places in Nottinghamshire and Nottingham with a PlaceFit page, 27 have at least one declared area crossing the area within about 3 km of their centre. They are almost all in and around Nottingham: the city's suburbs, and towns and villages in Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe nearby, plus Hucknall in Ashfield.
| Place | Council | Declared air quality management areas within about 3 km |
|---|---|---|
| Nottingham | City of Nottingham | 1 |
| Sneinton | City of Nottingham | 1 |
| West Bridgford | Rushcliffe | 1 |
| Arnold | Gedling | 1 |
| Beeston | Broxtowe | 1 |
| Hucknall | Ashfield | 1 |
| Ruddington | Rushcliffe | 1 |
Rushcliffe Borough Council revoked its last two air quality management areas, at Trent Bridge and by the A52 at Stragglethorpe, on 14 May 2025. Rushcliffe places listed here that still show 1 are counting Nottingham City Council's citywide area (AQMA No.2), whose boundary lies within about 3 km.
Many larger towns further out, including these, have none within about 3 km:
| Place | Council | Declared air quality management areas within about 3 km |
|---|---|---|
| Mansfield | Mansfield | None |
| Newark-on-Trent | Newark and Sherwood | None |
| Worksop | Bassetlaw | None |
| Retford | Bassetlaw | None |
| Southwell | Newark and Sherwood | None |
| Bingham | Rushcliffe | None |
| Keyworth | Rushcliffe | None |
| Radcliffe on Trent | Rushcliffe | None |
| Eastwood | Broxtowe | None |
Reading it fairly
- A declared area may cover only a few streets inside the 3 km circle, so a home elsewhere in the same town may be well away from it.
- No declared area does not mean perfect air. It means the council has not found a place likely to miss the objectives.
- If air quality matters to you, look at the council's air quality pages and where the declared area runs before you choose a street.
Everyday life around Beeston, including air quality · Everyday life around Mansfield · How PlaceFit measures places
Air quality management areas from the Planning Data platform's air quality management area dataset (Defra), retrieved 23 October 2026: declared areas intersecting the area within about 3 km of each place's centre. Counts here exclude Rushcliffe's two remaining areas, revoked on 14 May 2025 (Defra UK-AIR refs 375 and 857, read 2 November 2026). Explanation of air quality management areas from Defra's UK AIR site, read 22 October 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.