Dr Caroline Mawer warns about polluted air

By CAITLIN MASKELL

A CLIMATE campaigner led a walk around Bloomsbury highlighting levels of toxic air on Thursday – amid warnings that people who live in Camden are having more than a year shaved off their lives due to pollution alone.

Dr Caroline Mawer said monitors put up next to lampposts were showing dangerously high readings, in breach of World Health Organisation safe levels.

“We all breathe 20,000 times a day, I think we should be breathing clean air. We should not be frightened into inaction,”she said. “We must make the government accountable for what they are not doing. If we have to demonstrate outside MP’s offices we will.”

The monitors chart levels of Nitrogen Dioxide and PM 2.5 particles, which can harm hearts and lungs. Residents in Camden can check how polluted the air is in their streets by looking at live readings from them on the airscape.ai website.

There are 239 checkpoints across the borough.

Founder Professor Matthew Johnson said: “You live one year and 4 months less living in London compared with the countryside due to exposure to air pollution”.

People who joined the walk were shocked that even the space in front of Great Ormond Street Hospital had high levels of both N02 and PM 2.5 particles and where worryingly some of our most vulnerable are situated.

The scores on the monitors suggest the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) has made a significant difference in air quality since 2019, with number of polluted vehicles on the road down and NO2 levels falling in central London, reducing harmful Nitrogen Oxides by 46 per cent in Central London.

But Dr Mawer said authorities could go further. She gave the example of shops still promoting disposable BBQs as summer essentials to be used in local parks when she believes they should be banned to have cleaner air.

Airscape.ai and addresspollution.org can be accessed online allowing a personalised experience of the pollution in your area and planning routes around the city with the least pollution.