WAVERLEY Council's Defra-funded feasibility study of measures to tackle poor air quality in Farnham is "a good start" but needs considerable further development, according to a town and borough councillor representing the town centre.

Farnham's deputy mayor, Paddy Blagden, gave his verdict on the traffic management and low-emission feasibility study at a meeting of the full Waverley Council.

The study, which used automatic number plate recognition among measures to track the route of vehicles in the town centre, gave a basic evaluation of how effective a range of measures would be in cutting pollution.

Its findings, reported in February, were that changes in traffic circulation would be the most effective means of improving air quality.

But in a discovery hailed by Waverley as "of potentially national significance" it also identified diesel cars as the single largest contributor to nitrogen dioxide.

For full story, see this week's Farnham Herald.