London Mayor Ken Livingstone's introduction of a capital-wide Low Emission Zone (LEZ) has been welcomed by Friends of the Earth.
The environmental campaign group urged the Mayor to strengthen the initiative and to also drop major road building plans - such as the Thames Gateway Bridge - so that Londoners do not suffer from unacceptable air pollution caused by road traffic. Effects of air pollution include ill health, extra hospital admissions and premature deaths.
London's single largest source of air pollution is road traffic. The LEZ will only reduce air pollution to below European Union (EU) air quality legal limits in some areas of London, leaving parts of the capital still dangerously polluted. Friends of the Earth called on the Mayor to ensure that the whole of London is brought within legal limits.
Friends of the Earth London Campaigns Co-ordinator, Jenny Bates said:
"We congratulate Ken Livingstone on this initiative. The LEZ is exactly the kind of initiative Londoners need to end decades of needless threat to their health from dirty vehicles. But to protect the health of all Londoners the whole of the capital must be brought within legal air quality limits."
The environmental group argued that the LEZ could be strengthened by the inclusion of emissions from cars. At present only emissions from lorries, buses, coaches, heavier vans and minibuses are included.
The Mayor could also improve air quality by abandoning large road building schemes. Traffic generated from the proposed Thames Gateway road bridge in east London would mean worse air quality - with one site in Newham exceeding an EU legal limit when it would not if the bridge was not built - something the Inspector at the public inquiry into the scheme said was unacceptable [1].
Bates added: "The Mayor's road building schemes undermine his efforts to improve air quality in the capital. Building the Thames Gateway bridge would only worsen air quality and traffic congestion there. It's the poorer communities living close to these areas who are set to suffer most. The Mayor has a duty to tackle health inequalities and preventing new building schemes would help to achieve that aim." [2]
Notes
[1] The Thames Gateway bridge public inquiry Inspector said in his report, which recommended that planning permission for the scheme be refused, "in an area in which air quality has historically been low, and where it is identified as a current problem, I do not regard that as acceptable"
More information on the Thames Gateway Bridge
[2] For information on the Mayor's new powers and duties to tackle health inequalities, gained in the GLA Act 2007
www.london.gov.uk/mayor/health/strategy/reducing.jsp and
www.london.gov.uk/mayor/powers/index.jsp
[3] The London Air Quality Network
Friends of the Earth
