Girls’ bid to save pal from hospital ordeal

Feisty eight-year-olds Jessica Hamer and Jannat Nawaz are petitioning politicians to close the road outside their school after seeing vehicle emission harm their friend’s health.

The girls were concerned that classmate Lillian is hospitalised multiple times every winter due to asthma attacks.

After monitoring air quality at Crowcroft Park Primary School in Levenshulme, Manchester, they started a petition calling for a “school streets” scheme across the city.

That would close the roads outside schools at drop-off and pick-up times, to cut the levels of pollutants children are exposed to and make it safer for families to arrive on foot.

Jessica’s mum Ruth Todhunter said she had thought the school, near a park and on a quiet road, was in a relatively clean area – until they borrowed an air quality monitor from the British Lung Foundation.

The results showed regular spikes of toxic nitrogen dioxide, peaking 50 per cent above EU legal limits.

Ruth said: “I was utterly shocked by the readings, taken when people were still working from home last September.

“When we studied the traffic, we realised vans and lorries were coming off the main road to avoid the lights, and bus drivers were idling the engines to warm their feet.”

The mum, who uses her Twitter account @todhunter to spread the call for change, said: “It isn’t just asthma – it damages their lungs and is linked to brain damage and cancer.

“Awareness can bring change. No parent wants to poison their children.”

It’s not just asthma, it can cause cancer and harm brain RUTH TODHUNTER ON FEARS OVER AIR QUALITY