18 July 2011 - Keith Taylor, the Green MEP for Berkshire and the South East, will bring his new air pollution campaign to Reading on Monday 18 July. He will meet with local Green councilor, Melanie Eastwood, who has successfully lobbied for air pollution monitoring to be re-installed outside Alfred Sutton Primary School, a pollution hotspot with high levels of the pollutant Nitrogen dioxide (NO2).
Keith will be meeting with Melanie Eastwood and other parents to raise his concerns about air pollution and the impact it can have on children’s health. He will also be distributing a public information leaflet, ‘Air Pollution: The Invisible Killer’, which he has produced to raise awareness of air pollution and its damaging health impacts. The leaflet explains how air pollution is created, how widespread the problem is, how it affects our health and how pollution can be reduced.
The centre of Reading is covered by an ‘Air Quality Management Area’ because the government approved level for the harmful pollutant, Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), is being exceeded. Keith will be calling on local people to write to cllr Jo Lovelock, Leader of Reading Borough Council, to ask her to do more to tackle this invisible public health crisis. Later in the day Keith will be meeting with Ross Jarvis, Lead Air Quality Officer at Reading Borough Council to raise his concerns about air pollution in Reading.
Keith said: “The right to breathe clean air is fundamental. Yet thousands of lives in Reading and across the South East are being shortened because air is heavily polluted in many places, mostly by traffic. Government data shows that air pollution contributes to over 200,000 premature deaths every year in the UK. This is an invisible public health crisis which urgently needs to be tackled.”
“I’m pleased to be joining campaigners in Reading today to highlight the health impacts of air pollution. In particular I think it’s vital that we know how bad the air around our schools is so that we can take appropriate action to protect children from the shocking health impacts of dirty air. In my meeting with the borough council I will be calling on them to take action by investing in public transport and encouraging people to walk and cycle more. Only by making it easier for people to be less dependent on their cars will we start to improve the air around us and make our cities more healthy and pleasant places to live and work.”
Councillor Eastwood said: “As an asthma sufferer since childhood, this is a matter close to my heart. The landscape around the school, stretching far and wide, has changed at an alarming rate over recent years. In just the last 5 years alone, a huge part of East Reading, particularly the land owned by Reading University, has been so significantly developed it is unrecogniseable.
“Both Reading and Wokingham Local Authorities need to face the reality that they are losing the ecological battle in the town and that they are putting our lives at risk by continuing to permit the large-scale development that is taking place in this area.
“This area is very densely populated, losing any more trees or open spaces will see the pollution levels rise to such an extent that the health of our children will suffer. Quality of life includes being able to have the right to enjoy the natural environment around us and I fear that not enough is being done to give the children in Reading this choice”.
Keith is taking his campaign to Southampton, Winchester, Hampshire’s ‘Little Green Gathering’, Oxford, Reading, Maidstone, Canterbury, Redhill and Hove.
ENDS
