Air quality on Scotland’s most polluted street breached legal limits last year despite the continued reduction in traffic due to Covid restrictions, environmental campaigners have said.

Hope Street in Glasgow recorded an annual average above the legal limit for vehicle fuel pollution, according to Friends of the Earth Scotland.

Other streets across Scotland also saw a rise in air pollution last year.

The previous year saw pollution remain within legal limits for the first time.

The sudden fall in 2020 came when the first Covid lockdown removed most vehicles from city centres, where most air quality monitors are situated.

The campaign group analysed official air pollution data for 2021 from these monitors, looking at two pollutants which are primarily produced by transport – nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate pollution (PM10).

The legal limit for NO2, set by the European Ambient Air Quality Directive, is 40 mcg/m3.