Act now for cleaner air

DISTURBING new figures published by the Daily Express today reveal that one in three of us live in areas of the country where air toxicity exceeds the World Health Organisation limit for particle pollution.

Surprisingly, some of the worstaffected areas are ones you would expect to be fresh-air friendly – Barrowin-Furness, Lowestoft, Penzance, Portsmouth and Ipswich.

The call is out for urgent Government action and a major Clean Air Summit taking place in London on Thursday is a start. To be attended by Environment Secretary Michael Gove, Health Secretary Matt Hancock MP and the NHS’s CEO Simon Stevens, it will address these figures, and herald the world’s first Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), due to start in London in April. There the figures showed 7.5 million people are exposed to harmful toxins.

With growing impetus to address the “invisible killer” of air pollution, our guess is that other English towns and cities will not be far behind.