Exeter has been ranked as England’s cleanest city in a new analysis by the ENDS Report, reveals Exeter City Council.

The finding comes after the ENDS Report conducted an in-depth analysis of enviromental data which studied 55 primary urban areas across the country and ranked them on 30 different enviromental factors across five categories: air quality, water quality, climate, public realm, and green behaviour.

Exeter ranked highly across several measures and particularly in the air quality category, where it was found the city had the fewest days of poor air quality of all the areas being measured.

Exeter understood the challenges of climate change…long before most other people were thinking about these things

Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw

Commenting on the first-place ranking, Exeter’s MP Ben Bradshaw said it was partly due to the city’s “very forward looking, green tinged Labour administration” and because the area had “understood the challenges of climate change, air quality, water quality, congestion, local amenity and quality of life long before most other people were thinking about these things.”

However, local Councillor Rachel Sutton suggested there are still significant steps that Exeter needs to take to improve its enviromental impact. Earlier in the month she said: “We are doing our bit but we can’t do it alone. That’s why we need our partners in the city and the big employers to work with us and look at their own carbon emissions, and we have to tackle things like transport, in collaboration with the County Council.”