And Stewart Petrie says that he sees ‘no reason’ why Jersey cannot have an Islandwide state-of-the-art pollution-monitoring system in place by the end of the year.
Currently, the Environment Department has two monitors recording real-time data – one in Halkett Place and another in Howard Davis Park.
There are also 20 diffusion tubes across the Island which provide more basic yearly average data.
Last week the JEP reported how Islander Ollie Taylor claimed that he had recorded levels of nitrogen dioxide on St Saviour’s Hill that breached EU limits.
And on Wednesday, UK firm Ricardo-AEA was brought to the Island by the Environment Department to analyse air quality in the Tunnel – something which is not thought to have been done since 1994.
The results from those tests are expected to be published shortly.
Mr Petrie said that the department was looking to purchase similar equipment to that used by the UK firm to get meaningful data about pollution levels across the Island.
However, he said that the department needed to work out how many units were needed for the scheme to be useful.
Mr Petrie said: ‘The equipment has become better and less expensive over the years and we want to install similar pieces of equipment which measure air particulate levels and levels of nitrogen dioxide.
‘We would install these in five different areas where there is known to be standing traffic – places like outside the Central Market, the Weighbridge and St Saviour’s Hill and then we can look at rolling it out elsewhere.
‘Following that, we want to attach the devices to the front of buses which will take samples every few minutes as the bus goes along, and provide us with real-time data.’
