A new five year plan to make the air in Cambridge cleaner has been put together as councillors said there is “no safe level of air pollution”.

Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council have set out a new joint strategy to reduce air pollution across the areas.

Councillors in Cambridge said they recognised a lot had been done to improve air quality in the city, but said there is still more to be done.

The city council endorsed the strategy at a meeting of the environment and community scrutiny committee this week (March 21).

Councillor Rosy Moore, the executive councillor for climate action and environment, said the city now met the legal standards for air quality.

However, she said the new strategy would help the authorities to be “more ambitious”.

Cllr Moore said: “We should not be kidding ourselves that just because we are achieving the national targets that our air is good enough.

“It is good to note things have improved but there is still a way to go.”

The strategy document highlights that traffic on Cambridge’s roads is the main contributor of Nitrogen Dioxide emissions.

To address this the plan sets out a number of points including supporting public transport; consolidating freight and looking at last mile deliveries; considering the road hierarchy; improving cycling and walking routes; improving electric car charging infrastructure; and encouraging people to use “green infrastructure”.

The report said: “Greater Cambridge is a major growth area with large scale development and population increase coming forward in the next 10 to 20 years.

“This strategy seeks to strike a balance in supporting the productivity, economy and prosperity of Greater Cambridge, whilst continuing to deliver improvements in air quality and the positive health outcomes that improved air quality will deliver for both residents and visitors to the Greater Cambridge area.”

Councillor Olaf Hauk said he was “very happy” about the plan and the collaboration between the city and district council.

He said: “It is a bit of a cliché that air does not know any borders, but it is true.”

Councillor David Levien said the city had a “very bad reputation for pollution”, which he said could in some areas at certain times be “particularly bad”.

Councillor Mark Ashton said he believed it was important to recognise the improvements made saying he believed it was “misleading” to say the city was “known for bad air quality”.

Officers said air quality in the city had improved over the last 20 years and said the authority could highlight more how far it had come.

Councillor Jean Glasberg said it was important to get people in the city to understand how air pollution could be harmful, so people knew why some behaviours needed to change.

The committee voted to unanimously support the new strategy, which it proposed to be in place until 2029.