MEP demands EU Commissioner tackles London's dirty air

2.15.00pm GMT Fri 12th Feb 2010

Sarah Ludford MEP (middle) and Ed Davey MP (left) and Cllr Vicki Harris (right) campaigning for better air quality in Tolworth.

London Liberal Democrat MEP Sarah Ludford has seized the opportunity of the approval of the new European Commission by MEPs on Feb 9th, to immediately fire off a letter calling on the new environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik to make tackling London's shockingly dirty air a top priority.

The letter, co-signed by London Liberal Democrat colleagues Ed Davey, MP for Kingston & Surbiton and Mike Tuffrey, leader of the Lib Dems in the GLA., urges Commissioner Potočnik to take swift action in enforcing EU air quality obligations on nitrogen dioxide (N02) limits that came into force on 1 January 2010.

Sarah Ludford said:

"Lack of clean air is a major health hazard. Estimates of the number of lives lost by Londoners every year vary from 3,500 to a staggering 8,000 - 40 times more than the death toll from road accidents!"

"The new EU law sets an annual quota for top pollutant nitrogen dioxide, but this has already, six weeks into the year, been grossly exceeded at several London locations including the traffic-choked Marylebone Road."

"Labour and Tory politicians have totally failed to act to end London's dirty air scandal. The fact that it only took a few weeks for the capital to burst through the pollution cap for the whole of 2010 shows how badly they have betrayed the health needs of Londoners. Liberal Democrats are the only party campaigning hard on this issue on local, regional, national and European levels."

"We had good support from the previous EU environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, who did get tough on other aspects of air quality like diesel particles and airport expansion."

"We demand that his successor Janez Potočnik now makes enforcement of strict European clean air standards the first item on his to-do list, and that he makes London, the host city of the 2012 Olympic games, the flagship of this policy."