Wales Green Party today welcomed NICE’s announcement of a consultation on their new draft guidelines on outdoor air quality. *
Local Green Parties across Wales are in the early stages of a citizen science campaign to monitor air quality in rural and urban locations across the nation. Poor air quality is not just a feature of cities, but can happen anywhere there is a build-up of vehicles in an area of poor ventilation. A street of terraced houses in Crumlin, Caerphilly, is so polluted by passing vehicles that it has the second worst air quality in the UK, second only to the Marylebone Road in London.
Pippa Pemberton, Campaigns Coordinator for the Wales Green Party, said:
“There is an urgent need to improve air quality across Wales and the UK, which is why Wales Green Party have launched our citizen science campaign to monitor air quality across Wales. The Westminster Government has been taken to court several times on this issue, and has repeatedly been found to be failing in their legal duty to protect people from dangerous levels of air pollution. So we have taken matters into our own hands, to collect data to show how appalling air quality really is in Wales.
The impact of air pollution in Wales is absolutely shocking. Well over 1000 people in Wales die early because of it every year. So we are pleased to see NICE stepping up to advocate action on air quality, our biggest public health issue outside of climate change.
And while we welcome their emphasis on future urban design, the development of clean air zones, driver training and public information, we don’t think that this report goes far enough. We applaud their call for improvements to walking and cycling infrastructure, so that people are safe and inspired to be active in their travel, but we are worried by the lack of recommendations for public transport. It is all very well to support low and zero emission private and fleet vehicles, but the real change in public quality of life will come when we reclaim and reinvigorate our public transport systems across urban and rural areas.
We call for NICE to include recommendations for integrated and affordable public transport in their final report, and for the Westminster government to provide ring-fenced funding for councils to develop new local public transport networks fit for the 21st century.”
Notes
* https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/indevelopment/gid-phg92/documents
The major human sources of air pollution are the combustion of fuels for heat, electricity and transport. Road transport accounts for 31% of nitrogen oxides (NOx), 18% of PM10 and 19.5% of PM2.5 UK emissions (PM are particulate matter of differing sizes). It frequently accounts for more than 64% of air pollution at urban monitoring sites. This comes from exhausts and other sources such as the wear of tyres, brakes and the road.
In 2008, the effect of human-produced (anthropogenic) particulate air pollution on mortality in the UK was estimated at equivalent to nearly 29,000 deaths at typical ages, and an associated loss of total life of 340,000 life-years