Air pollution ‘killing 1,500 people per year’ in region West Midlands misses targets as it fails to tackle problem
FILTHY air in the West Midlands is killing almost 1,500 people a year – and attempts to clean it are failing, a new report reveals.
And the problem could get even worse once the UK leaves the European Union.
That is the claim from a House of Commons inquiry, which called on the Government to launch a campaign to encourage people to drive electric cars.
In a new report, the inquiry named 38 out of 43 areas across the UK that are in break of legal air pollution limits, including the West Midlands.
The European Union set limits for the level of air pollution which were supposed to be met by 2010.
But the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has admitted that the target was missed in the West Midlands and a study by Public Health England warned air pollution was responsible for an estimated 520 deaths a year in Birmingham alone.
A new report by MPs said the problem is not being dealt with quickly enough and that the Government was start cars.
MP Mary Creagh, chairman of the Commons Environmental Audit Committee, said: “We need 9 per failing using to encourage people to low-pollution electric cent of all new cars to be ultra-low emission vehicles by 2020 if we’re going to meet our climate change targets at the lowest cost to the public. But the Department’s forecasts show it will get only around half way to this target.”
Public Health England has revealed that almost 1,500 people in the West Midlands are dying from pollution each year.
This includes 520 excess deaths in Birmingham, 168 in Coventry, 173 in Dudley, 198 in Sandwell, 107 in Solihull, 155 in Walsall and 139 in Wolverhampton.
The pollution figures refer to levels of nitrogen dioxide in the air, released when fuels are burned.
A government spokesman said: “The Government is firmly committed to improving the UK’s air quality and cutting harmful emissions. That’s why we have committed more than £2 billion to greener transport schemes since 2011 and set out a national plan to tackle pollution in our towns and cities.”