Health campaigners have reacted angrily to news that Putney High Street has exceeded its annual limit for nitrogen dioxide emissions just eight days into the new year.

 

Figures from the London Air Quality Network show that Putney’s monitoring site measured one more hour than the 18 hours permitted each year for excessive nitrogen dioxide concentration last Friday.

 

Clean Air in London director Simon Birkett said: “This shocking start to the 60th anniversary year of the world’s first Clean Air Act in 1956 illustrates the scale of the Mayor’s failure to reduce diesel fumes, which are the main source of nitrogen dioxide at street level.”

 

“Diesel exhaust is the biggest public health catastrophe since the Black Death,” he added.

 

Knightsbridge has also since exceeded the annual emissions limit for 2016 and Oxford Street is thought to have exceeded the limit too, although monitoring equipment from site is reported to be faulty.

 

Gary Fuller from King’s College London, which runs the London Air Quality Network, said the results were not a surprise. “If you want to look for a cause you only have to stand beside these busy streets and watch the number of diesel vehicles that go past,” he said.

 

“The EU and UK set limits for nitrogen dioxide emissions in 1999 to be met by 2010 and here we are in 2016 exceeding them after just a few days.” He added that there is “no prospect” that the country will meet its nitrogen dioxide obligation under current plans until at least 2025.

 

He added that cleaning the exhausts of vehicles would tackle the problem but encouraging people to drive less through active travel promotions would have more benefit.

 

Labour’s London Assembly environment spokesman Murad Qureshi said: “London needs an ambitious and far reaching strategy for tackling air pollution, on a scale far higher than we’ve seen under Boris Johnson. This means a bigger Ultra Low Emission Zone with tighter restrictions on the most polluting vehicles.”

 

A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said: “The Mayor expects that by introducing new zero emission capable taxis and the world's first Ultra Low Emission Zone from 2020, there will be a 70% reduction in the number of Wandsworth residents living in areas breaching NO2 limits and significant improvements elsewhere in the capital.”

 

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