Air Pollution: London

Sarah Olney Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray, and to attend this incredibly important debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on calling it.

The problem of poor quality air is a source of major concern to the constituents of Richmond Park. The air pollution in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames exceeds the legal limits for nitrogen dioxide and PM₁₀ levels. We know that the overwhelming contributor to poor air quality in Richmond is motor vehicles, and that we see the worst examples of exceedances along our major roads. In the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, more than 4,000 people live in areas where levels of nitrogen dioxide exceed legal levels.

In Richmond Park, we are all immensely fortunate to live in close proximity to the park and enjoy all the benefits of the extensive green space that it offers. However, the downside is the huge constraints it imposes on traffic movements, especially on the western and northern sides, where traffic is confined to a limited number of roads between the park and the river, and further constrained by the railway line and a large number of level crossings. The almost relentless congestion that ensues creates poor quality air for everybody. I am committed to supporting any measure that can address it.

I am really pleased that both local authorities, led by Liberal Democrats, are taking positive action on combating poor air quality. The main priority is to encourage people to reduce the number of car journeys they make by making alternatives safe and accessible. To that end, both councils have made significant investments in walking and cycling routes to make active travel a more attractive option for residents across Richmond Park. We already have fantastic routes across the park and by the river, and work is ongoing to make road cycling safer, such as through introducing 20 mph speed limits.

We need to see continued investment by the Mayor of London into bus routes and for bus travel to be affordable and accessible. That is why I opposed the Department for Transport’s attempts to force children and young people to pay for travel on public transport, which would have resulted in more young people being driven around by their parents. I encourage Transport for London to increase and extend bus routes, especially in the Barnes area, which has been so badly affected by the closure of Hammersmith bridge. The closure of the bridge is the main contributor to congestion in East Sheen and Barnes, greatly contributing to poor air quality in those neighbourhoods, and I take the opportunity again to call on the Government to come up with a funding solution for the repairs.

The Liberal Democrats’ excellent mayoral candidate Luisa Porritt has made clean air in London a cornerstone of her campaign, calling for new road pricing schemes and for rewilding our roofs and public spaces. I am pleased to say that we are already enacting similar schemes in Richmond and Kingston, introducing greater biodiversity into our verges and green spaces. There is no doubt that close proximity to Heathrow also plays its part in poor air quality in west London. The Government must make a clear statement that further expansion of Heathrow cannot be permitted to go ahead both because of the impact of increased poor air quality on the communities that surround the airport and because expansion cannot be compatible with the Government’s net zero targets.

It was highlighted to me when I spoke to officers at the local councils about the challenges of combating air pollution locally that what local authorities really need is the power to create clean air zones that would put greater restrictions on activities such as using wood-burning stoves or driving polluting vehicles. What is needed is a new clean air Act. Think about how transformational the Clean Air Act 1956 was and the difference it made to London’s air. Within a few years, the type of pea-souper smog that killed as many as 4,000 people in its worst incarnation, in 1952, was virtually eliminated. There is no doubt that modern pollutants and those smogs of 70 years ago represent an equivalent risk to human health, as the case of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah so tragically illustrates. We need to take the same approach today, prioritise clean air and take whatever measures are necessary to ensure that we can all breathe freely.