A while ago I wrote this article about the box installed on a lamppost down our road. I surmised that this was a local weather station providing hyper-local weather, but that is not the case. Read on to find out what it actually is…
I was surprised to see someone up a ladder tending to the contents of the box this week and so I decided to go and find out exactly what it was all about. The person was happy to chat and explained that he was from the Transport Research Laboratory, contracted to the local council, and the box was for recording air quality. In addition to the very obvious wind speed and direction that you can see on the outside, inside the box are air particle detectors. This is apparently one of a number of boxes dotted around the area.
Having one here makes sense given our proximity to a very busy motorway and the council has a responsibility to monitor the air quality. Of course, collecting the information is only one part of the job – acting on is equally as important although given that the responsibility for the motorway rests with Highways England I’m not sure what the council might do.
As this should be public information I am going to contact the council to gain access to the, hopefully, raw data so I can see just how good or bad the pollution is here. Then maybe press them to do something about it.
I’m sorry that this turned out not to be hyper-local weather as it would have been great to know my forecasts were that accurate but it’s interesting to know definitively what the box is there for.
