City billboards highlight pollution figures shame
AN environmental organisation has ‘subverted’ billboards across Glasgow calling for diesel cars to be taken off the road.
Greenpeace is aiming to highlight what it deems to be a failure by governments and car companies to tackle toxic air
he group claims that the UK has reached its annual air pollution limit just one month into the year, for the eighth year running.
Illustrations of people holding placards that read ‘Diesel is breaking the limit’ have appeared in Govan Road, Southcroft Street and under the famous Duke of Wellington statue in Royal Exchange Square.
Mel Evans, clean air campaigner at Greenpeace, said: “This event has now become an annual spectacle demonstrating the abject failure of governments and car companies to tackle the scandal of toxic air cloaking our towns and cities and making people sick.
“The best way to tackle this crisis is to get diesel off our roads and fast.
“We need leading car companies to stop making more toxic diesel cars, and governments in the UK and all devolved nations to get diesel off our roads as a priority.
“Here in Glasgow, the city council needs to make the proposed Low Emission Zone as strong as possible, with real penalties for pollution, as well as doing more to provide clean alternative transport options and support for electric vehicles.”
As previously reported by the Evening Times, Hope Street was ranked the worst in Scotland.
Data analysed by environmental group Friends of the Earth Scotland revealed that the street was ranked Scotland’s dirtiest alongside Dumbarton Road.
A Low Emission Zone will be launched in Glasgow by the end of this year to tackle the issue of air pollution by restricting the most polluting buses, vans and lorries by the end of 2020.
Transport Minister Humza Yousaf has welcomed the LEZ.
He said: “I’m delighted that Glasgow is working to have their LEZ in place by the end of 2018.
“We have pledged to work with local authorities to introduce Low Emission Zones in Scotland’s four biggest cities by 2020 and this is a positive step towards that vision. This is a decision T . based on the scientific evidence which demonstrates the link between air pollution and ill health.
“Our position is that local authorities should be ambitious, and that all vehicles including private cars should be included in a LEZ in a phased manner.”