Action on Air Quality - World Environmental Health Day, Bristol Green Capital Partnership and EPUK

Interest in and concern about air quality continues to grow, internationally, nationally and locally.

World Environmental Health Day                                                                    

Air quality was the subject of the International Federation of Environmental Health’s World Environmental Health Day  held on 26th of September. Events to celebrate the day, promote awareness of air pollution and to call for action took place in many places including Spain, Portugal, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India. 

The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health organised a Question Time style debate in London which was live streamed and will soon be available from the CIEH website. I joined Bridget Fox (Campaign for Better Transport) Roger Geffen (Cycling UK) and Matt Clark (CIEH Air Quality Panel) to debate the issues.  In my opening address I provided an overview of the air quality problem before providing a critique of the current approach of the UK government’s plan for tackling roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations. You can read my views on the plan here. In brief my address noted the following:

• The WHO estimates an annual toll of 3.9 million deaths attributable to ambient air pollution in the world
• WHO Europe estimates 0.5 million deaths and 6.5 million cases of illness attributable to ambient air pollution in Europe with induced health care costs of 4 billion Euros  and lost work days estimated as costing 16 billion Euros.
• In the EU 24-member states exceed binding EU Air quality standards.
• In the UK some 40000 premature deaths are attributed to particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide.
• In the UK 67% of local authorities have one or more Air Quality Management Areas (AQMA). An AQMA is a spatially designated area where air quality exceeds an Air Quality Objective. The overwhelming majority of AQMAs are due to traffic emissions of nitrogen dioxide.  Each AQMA requires an Air Quality Action Plan and these should have improved air quality in each AQMA such that the AQMA was revoked by 2005. However, 12 years later the UK still is still adding to the total of AQMAs!
• Air pollution is not an accident. It results from decisions that others take to shape the land use plan, the economic development plan and the transport system. Air pollution results from the interrelationship of these processes and the consequence is an impact on public health.
• The first duty of government is protection of the public. There is still some work to do in so far as public health protection from air pollution is concerned.
• The UK government’s plan for tackling roadside nitrogen dioxide concentrations does not provide the critical thinking to clearly define the problem or to offer a coherent plan led approach to implementation. It lacks ambition, urgency and fails to demonstrate that the scale of the public health challenge has been realised.

Bristol Green Capital Partnership (BGCP)                              

BGCP recently held a well-attended workshop to debate the air quality issues and challenges in the city including the feasibility study for a Clean Air Zone, to share ideas and to promote collaborative working. Read Ann O’Driscoll blog about the meeting on the BGCP website     

BGCP’s Healthy City Week, exploring solutions to Bristol’s health and sustainability challenges, runs from 7th to 14th October and features a range of events discussing the impacts of air pollution on health and wellbeing.

EPUK Annual Conference                                                       

On 9th November the world’s oldest environmental protection society, EPUK , will hold their annual conference on The Future of the UK Environment: delivering health and wellbeing over the next 25 years at Aston University’s Conference Centre, Birmingham. I will be delivering the closing address discussing the critical role of  local authorities in delivering environmental protection with particular focus on their role in air quality management. 

So, air pollution is continuing to gain lots of attention from many different actors and agencies but we need to see this attention turn into the implementation of measures that will provide effective public health protection and, in turn, reduce the toll of illness and death attributed to air pollution.

Professor Jim Longhurst

28/9/17