CHESHIRE East Council air quality recordings are under investigation after data anomalies were found on the council’s systems.

In an internal audit report for 2016/17, it had found that management at CEC identified multiple anomalies in the latest figures for the 2015 Air Quality Annual Status Report.

The chief executive had requested an internal audit be carried out to review the data returns and processes in place for monitoring, recording and dissemination of air quality data.

The review found air quality management policies, procedures and assurance mechanisms were not in place or communicated to staff.

This resulted in a number of errors in the reporting of air quality data to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and other stakeholders for a number of years.

The report did not identify which area of the borough the anomalies were found.

Jonathan Parry, Middlewich Town Councillor, said: “I am not surprised that this is the case as figures I presented to Cheshire East Council were contradicted with their own at the time.

“Air quality is one of the most important issues we are going through at the moment and it needs addressing properly.

“Figures for NO2 levels in Lewin Street are not going down, they will only continue to go up and the borough council do not want to do anything about it.

“I’ve been told many times that the figures haven’t breached the NO2 limit in areas to designate them an air quality management area, but we shouldn’t need to wait for them to go over.

“We need to stop playing with people’s lives on this and do something about it now to bring down NO2 levels and make our towns cleaner.”

CEC were contacted but were unable to provide a comment on the matter as an external investigation is ongoing.