People all across Southwark are breathing in dangerous levels of poisonous fumes, new data shows.
The figures, obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the borough’s Liberal Democrats, show levels of nitrogen dioxide of up to 51 µg/m3 picked up by air quality monitoring stations – more than five times the level the World Health Organisation (WHO) calls safe as an annual average.
The British government’s requirements are less strict, at 40 µg/m3, but Southwark’s air still falls foul of these rules at several monitoring stations. Many of these monitoring units are by schools.
Cllr Victor Chamberlain, who revealed the figures, said: “Labour’s broken promises are literally choking us and local children. Southwark’s air quality is a scandal. Our council are simply not doing enough to tackle it. We desperately need to go greener, faster.”
The Lib Dems put forward a plan at the council assembly last week, Wednesday, February 23, to get the council to spend £430,000 on ten air purifiers that would filter out some of the nitrogen dioxide.
Labour councillors voted down the plan after Cllr Catherine Rose called it “a generous subsidy to property developers, the construction industry, landowners and commercial operators” because Green Tree Solutions, the company that produces the purifiers, discusses the increased property values its devices can yield.
Green Tree’s air purifiers have been used in London before – by the Conservative-run Wandsworth Council, according to the company’s website.
Cllr Chamberlain dismissed Cllr Rose’s concerns, adding that the Lib Dems were “not trying to favour any particular company.”
He said: “We’re looking for a practical solution that can help the people in our borough now, not some mystical way to solve the problem.”
Southwark’s ‘Dickensian’ air pollution levels need joined up approach
Southwark is the fourteenth-worst local authority for air quality, out of more than 300, according to research by Asthma + Lung UK. Children are more susceptible to air pollution than adults because their lungs are still developing and they tend to spend more time outdoors.
Cllr Chamberlain said: “It’s absolutely scandalous, it’s almost Dickensian that children in Southwark could have less opportunities because of poor air quality in 2022.”
Southwark Council has brought in several measures to tackle air pollution in recent years, including school streets, the programme to close roads outside schools at pick-up and drop-off times, banning engine idling, and introducing 20mph speed limits on every road that it controls.
Not everything in the borough is under the council’s control. Speaking at the council assembly, Lib Dem councillor Damian O’Brien pointed out that Transport for London’s (TfL) Silvertown Tunnel in Greenwich, backed by mayor Sadiq Khan, could lead to more traffic jams and more cars heading for Tower Bridge, as an alternative route across the river.
Cllr Rose later told the News: “As a Labour run council we are getting on with cleaning up Southwark’s air. We have more than halved the harmful levels of NO2 pollution in our borough since 2013. Something we have achieved by reducing traffic using low traffic neighbourhoods, increasing the number of school streets, and expanding our monitoring network, to name a few.
“Labour will keep on delivering that improvement. Last month alone we committed another £2 million to improve air quality around Southwark’s schools, and we will be setting out an even more compressive package of measures in our manifesto.
“This real action by Labour is in stark contrast to the gimmicks put forward by the Liberal Democrats, who want to spend £430,000 on ten fake trees or so called air purifying units. In contrast Labour has planted over 10,000 real trees in Southwark in the last two years alone, which will do far more to clean up our air and bring countless other benefits to our borough.”