Air pollution limits being breached across England

Friends of the Earth has revealed the 1,360 sites across England that have breached the annual Air Quality Objective for Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) levels, which are set to protect health.

The leading cause of NO2 pollution is emissions from road traffic, which is also a huge source of climate-wrecking emissions. Friends of the Earth is campaigning to remove polluting vehicles from the road and clean up transport – to fight the climate crisis and to protect public health.

Although the most recent data shows a marginal improvement from previous years, the charity finds that there is still a shocking number of locations exceeding the Air Quality Objective, which local authorities have to achieve. Some places show very high levels of exposure (up to 144 per cent above the objective).

The Annual Air Quality Objective is set at 40ug/m3. The worst place for NO2 is not in a city, but a section of the A35 that passes through the village of Chideock in West Dorset, recording an average annual of 97.7 ug/m3.

Chideock was followed by Station Taxi Rank, Sheffield (91.7); North Street Clock Tower, Brighton (90.8); Neville Street Tunnel, Leeds (88); and Strand, City of Westminster (88).

Simon Bowens, clean air campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “Failing to fix air pollution costs lives. It also shows a failure to address the climate crisis because the sources and solutions are intrinsically linked. If ministers want to avoid a return to the health-damaging and illegal levels of air pollution we had before lockdown, their enthusiasm for ‘active travel’ needs to be a permanent switch and not just a short-term gap plugger.

“The government must also end its damaging fixation on building more roads. You can’t justify this by planning to phase out polluting petrol and diesel vehicles and replace them with electric ones. We need to go much further than just getting out of one type of car and into another. Investment in better cycling and walking should be part of a fair and green post-coronavirus economic recovery plan aimed at creating a cleaner, fairer future.”