Greens say council is not doing enough to tackle air pollution

29 April 2018

Exhaust pipe

Victoria George

Victoria George,who is standing for the Green Party in the Brentford ward, said “200 Hounslow people a year die as a result of air pollution, many more suffer poor health and what is our council doing about it? Many people share our concerns about air pollution. A public meeting organised by Air Quality Brentford in early 2017 was packed out, but what action have we seen since?

“The Green Party will continue to call for the council to address our concerns until we get some meaningful action.”

Tony Firkins who is also standing for the Green Party in the Brentford ward, pointed out:

“The council’s Cabinet was due to respond to the Task and Finish Group by 16th April. We have asked to be informed of their response but have not seen it. There is still no date for a revised Air Quality Action Plan to be implemented.”

“We are pleased that extra parking charges on high emission vehicles have been brought in, but what else has been done? The council has a statutory responsibility to reduce air pollution levels to within legal limits, and yet our ‘hotspots’ are still breaching those limits.”

“Since Labour has been in charge, the only Air Quality Action Plan they have published was back in 2005. Most of the targets in that plan remain unmet. A draft report appeared in June 2017 which went out to public consultation up to December. This report was far too vague and wordy. We raised this in our response to the consultation and didn’t get a reply. Later, a new ‘task and finish group’ was set up for the Housing & Environment Scrutiny Committee. This came up with further recommendations that still aren’t enough to reduce air pollution levels to legal levels.”

“All our concerns raised in response to the 2017 consultation still apply, including:-

We don’t know what will be done, and how it will be measured
We don’t know where the money will come from
The third runway at Heathrow is ignored
The council won’t be asking TfL to do anything about public transport, speed limits or the introduction of new clean air zones in Hounslow;
We don’t understand how walking and cycling will be promoted
We don’t know what will happen in sites where air pollution breaks legal limits, and there is no mention that major new housing developments are planned for some of these sites.”