Urgent action to combat poor air quality in cities has been demanded after a busy street in south London exceeded its annual pollution limit in just five days.

 

A monitoring station on Brixton Road reported that levels of nitrogen dioxide had exceeded 200 micrograms per cubic metre in one hour on 19 separate occasions by last Thursday evening, one more than is permissible in a year under World Health Organisation guidelines.

 

“The Mayor promised to restore London’s air quality to legal and safe limits and has a lot of work to do to come up with new measures to reduce Londoners’ exposure to polluted air,” remarked London Assembly Green Party Member Caroline Russell.

 

“Too many people have had their lives shortened, their asthma and other respiratory problems worsened and their quality of life reduced after weak Mayoral policies and Government inaction. It’s a public health catastrophe and needs an urgent response.”

 

Last year Putney High Street exceeded its annual nitrogen dioxide emissions limit in eight days.

 

Campaign group Clean Air in London director Simon Birkett said: “With diesel vehicles responsible for 90 - 95% of NO2 from vehicle exhaust the only way to achieve full compliance with World Heath Organisation guidelines is to ban diesels from the most polluted places as four other cities have pledged.”

 

He added that bus services should be suspended, motorists be advised not to drive and pedestrians warned to avoid areas when conditions get as bad as they did in Brixton last week.

 

A City Hall spokesman said: “The Mayor has announced 10 additional low emission bus zones to help tackle some of our most polluted hotspots and one of these zones will run through Brixton Road. Later this year he plans to introduce a new charge for older polluting vehicles in central London and will be consulting on bringing forward the Ultra Low Emission Zone earlier and expanding it up to the North and South Circular roads.”

 

The spokesman added that the Government needs to introduce a national diesel scrappage scheme and give the Mayor more powers to tackle emissions through a new Clean Air Act.

 

(Photo: stevekeiretsu and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence)