An Open Letter to Cllr Murray

Dear Cllr Murray,

Following on from my question at full council about air pollution, I wanted to follow up as I am disappointed to hear you say that targets have not been set for tackling air pollution in the borough.

The borough has an air quality action plan which should set these targets but focuses predominantly on one pollutant – nitrogen dioxide (NO2).

The report quite rightly states that there is a “link between air quality, particularly from PM2.5, and public health in the Borough requires exploration and this has been set as one of the priorities,” but since the action plan was written, nothing has been done about this.

It took the Liberal Democrat motion last autumn to get this on to the agenda and get a commitment to monitoring these fine particles.

I was amazed that several members of the council chamber thought we already monitored PM2.5s when we’ve never done it despite how deadly they are.

As you know, PM2.5s are solid particles that penetrate deep into the body, entering the blood stream.

Depending on what they are made of, many are classed as carcinogenic.

Air pollution is the number one environmental cause of premature death, with 80% of those deaths attributable to PM2.5s alone.

Personally, in the last 10 months, I have had to say goodbye to two members of my family and two friends who have all sadly passed away from cancer. This does not mean it was solely air pollution that caused their cancers, but we would have a lot less pain and suffering from diseases like this if we tackled air pollution effectively.

The recent Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) report demonstrate that the number one cause of death in the borough is cancer, and we are above regional and national averages for young children being hospitalised for respiratory tract infections.

Air pollution shortens people’s lives and makes those lives more uncomfortable due to chronic illnesses.

You asked me for my input on what our local targets should be, and I am requesting that we take the advice of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

While the WHO admits that there is no threshold where no damage to health is observed, it recommends that for PM2.5s, a maximum annual mean of 10 μg/m3 is used. There is a huge amount of data and information that supports the WHO recommendation, and I strongly urge you to instruct the council to adopt this target.

Kind regards,

Cllr Sarah Kerr, Liberal Democrat

Member for Evendons, Wokingham Borough Council