CAR numbers on a major Old Town road may need to be halved to get air pollution down to safe levels.

This year, a 50m stretch of road along Kingshill became the first area in Swindon to be declared an Air Quality Management Area, after nitrogen dioxide levels breached legal limits.

Swindon Borough Council has a year to develop plans to tackle air pollution along the hill.

At a public meeting on Wednesday evening, residents suggested everything from bringing back plans for an Old Town bypass road and improving walking and cycling paths to installing a bus gate and investing in public transport.

Damon Green, who oversees Swindon Borough Council’s air quality monitoring, said pollution levels had been monitored on Kingshill for many years. But it was only relatively recently that the evidence showed pollution had breached legal limits.

Around 90 per cent of the NO2 pollution along Kingshill was attributable to vehicles and just two per cent of the 18,000 vehicles running up and down the hill each day were lorries, buses or coaches, Mr Green said.

“We need to reduce road NO2 by about 53 per cent if we want to meet the air quality target,” he told residents.

While other roads in Swindon experience heavier flows of traffic, the meeting was told Kingshill’s canyon-like shape prevented dangerous vehicle emissions from dissipating into the atmosphere before it reached nearby homes.

Dr Ayo Oyinloye, a council public health consultant, said the impact of poor air quality could be devastating. An estimated one in 20 deaths in Swindon could be blamed on air pollution.

Karen Collyer, who lives in a Kingshill terrace just yards from the busy road, said years of exposure to air pollution had taken its toll on her husband’s health: “He’s had a number of strokes, a heart attack and had a pacemaker fitted. He has occasions when he struggles to breathe. Because of the high levels of traffic there are huge issues with getting out and getting up and down the hill.”

She told the Swindon Advertiser she had been forced to replace carpets in her home with hardwood flooring, because the diesel fumes had clogged them with dirt.

Other residents raised concerns about cuts to public transport provision that had seen bus numbers fall from 100 a day to just three. Others said more could be done to encourage drivers to bypass Kingshill Road, taking the shortcut to Croft Road via Redpost Drive.

The ideas will be among those tested by Swindon Borough Council as part of its Air Quality Management Plan, before the plans go out for public consultation in December. Government rules say the council must adopt the plan by February.

Council officers refused to say what ideas were already in the frame, saying they did not want to influence residents’ own proposals.

Coun Cathy Martyn, cabinet member for housing and public safety, also slapped down questions about how much cash had been set aside by the council to put the plans into action: “We’re going to consult on the proposed plan later this year. What comes out of this consultation will then dictate what the council considers needs to be done.

“That will dictate whatever funding needs to be put into the system, whether we have it already or whether we need to apply for it.”

People can offer their own ideas for improving Kingshill air quality by emailing: airquality@swindon.gov.uk.