Air pollution: London reaches annual legal air pollution limit less than a month into 2018
London has officially reached the UK’s legal air pollution limit for the entire year, according to live data from King’s College London.
Under EU pollution rules, an individual site cannot break the hourly limit of 200 micrograms of nitrogen dioxide per cubic metre of air more than 18 times in a year.
This year, the offending area was Brixton Road, which hit the limit for the 18th time this morning.
It’s not all bad news though: London’s air quality stuck within legal limits for the longest period in nearly two decades, according to Sadiq Khan, the capital’s mayor.
In previous years, London has broken the annual limits less than a week into the year.
Khan today announced a partnership with King’s College London to improve the way the public is informed about poor air quality incidents in the capital.
The new alert system will build off a programme implemented last year. From next week, King’s will continuously monitor air pollution in London and directly notify a wider group of stakeholders as required.
In the near future, alerts will also be targeted for those particularly vulnerable to poor air quality, like people at schools, care homes and GPs surgeries.
“At long last we are seeing some improvements in our toxic air, but there is a long way to go before we can breathe easy. I want more Londoners to engage with air quality issues so I am sure the new guidance that I have published today will encourage people to learn more about the air they breathe and what they can do to improve it,” Khan said.
He called on the government to “step up to the plate” and match his ambition.
Oliver Hayes, the clean air campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said the UK still has a long way to go on cleaning up its air, despite some good initiatives by the mayor. Hayes urged the government to provide a “decent” diesel scrappage scheme and create a network of clean air zones across the country.
“It’s high time we reimagined our cities so that people – not traffic– come first. Our health, our sense of community, and our wellbeing depend on it,” he said.
Read more: Experts say Sadiq Khan isn’t doing enough to tackle air pollution in London