Taxpayers cough up £600k over dirty air

TAXPAYERS have been landed with a £600,000 legal bill from failed bids to fight rulings on air pollution.

In January, the Government lost its third court battle over ‘flawed’ plans for meeting legal limits for nitrogen dioxide pollution, which should have been hit in 2010.

It racked up costs of £148,135 in the process, and was ordered to pay up to £35,000 costs to environmental legal charity ClientEarth, which brought the case, a freedom of information request by Labour shows. Ministers also incurred costs of £60,582 for a case brought by ClientEarth that was ruled on last July.

And, in April last year, a failed effort by ministers to delay publication of a new air pollution plan cost £ 14,796, plus ClientEarth’s costs of £11,000.

These figures are on top of more than £380,000 spent by the Government since 2011 on legal battles against efforts to make it strengthen plans to tackle dirty air. The total bill is now well over £600,000.

Air pollution causes an estimated 40,000 premature deaths a year and is linked to health problems including heart disease and dementia. Labour’s environment spokesman Sue Hayman said the issue needed to be tackled with ‘urgency, leadership and seriousness’.