An environmental group has denounced claims by the government that there is no necessity to monitor air quality in the Isle of Man.

As previously reported in the Manx Independent, the government stopped regular testing in 2009, saying the cost of renewing expensive testing equipment was not justified by the historic low levels of emissions recorded.

But Friends of the Earth conducted their own tests and found pollution levels above the EU recommended safe level at Quarter Bridge, Douglas. Levels were also very close to the limit by St Thomas’s school.

Peter Christian told the Examiner even the tests carried out in 2008 at Lord Street would have triggered designation as an Air Quality Management Area in the UK.

Moreover, he said the 2009 data was subject to a larger downward adjustment than previously, taking it below EU thresholds.

Data is generally subject to a mathematical adjustment of about 10 per cent, but the 2009 figures were adjusted by a factor of 28 per cent, he said.

’Hence the government deemed it established there were no real areas of concern. I can’t find any explanation for this big anomaly in the adjustment,’ he said.

He also disputed the government’s claim that the cost of replacing testing equipment was prohibitively high.

’In relation to cost, I don’t think this is true. The DEFA seems to have used the same diffusion tubes FoE employed. These are basic small plastic tubes containing a chemical reagent. The 2008 government review of air quality states, "Diffusion tubes are a simple and cost effective method of monitoring air quality",’ he said.

A legal duty to test and report findings to Tynwald, under the Public Health Act was never actually implemented, which he described as ’a sorry state of affairs’.