A NEW pollution survey carried out by Bradford on Avon Preservation Trust has revealed living in parts of the town is equivalent to smoking 60 cigarettes a day.

The chairman of the trust's traffic and air quality committee, Bryan Harris, who compiled the report, found levels of nitrogen dioxide to be double that of King;s Road and Marylebone Road London, which had pollution equivalent to smoking 30 cigarettes a day.

His survey, which maps out areas of the town ranging from 'just acceptable' to 'disastrous', gives predictions for air quality by the end of the year and 2010 and indicates that the town would fail to meet the Government's air quality objective by the end of 2005.

The findings raise new fears over the dangerous levels of pollution in the town and have led to fresh calls for a bypass.

Mr Harris, 70, said: "Bradford has a single river crossing and all of the traffic has to go through these narrow streets which makes the matter worse because they trap the pollution.

"The obvious solution is to reduce the amount of traffic by some 40 per cent, then we would have a reasonable chance of meeting the UK air quality requirement by the end of 2005, but if they don't do that they won't meet it."

Mr Harris, a former professor of materials science at the University of Bath, urged the county and district councils to take action over the 20,000 vehicles that stream through the town each day.

He said he would also take the matter to west Wiltshire MP Dr Andrew Murrison.

District council spokesman Louise Knox said steps were being taken to deal with the problem, with pollution being measured in several areas of the town.

She said: "The pollution problems are traffic related and nobody has argued against that, so anything that we put forward on the air quality side has to connect with the local transport plan, which is now in place.

"It has taken longer than we would have wished, but the flip side is trying to get the right solution the first time of trying.

A one-way system, originally considered by the county council in 2002, has not been ruled out.