From Anthony Rae

Monday, 2 November 2015

In 2010, the year when the UK was required to finally achieve compliance with EU air quality standards - that annual mean concentration levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) do not exceed 40μg/m3 - Calderdale council's monitoring (in Market Street ) showed that that level was being breached. And when not averaged over a 24-hour period it reached around 60 across the centre of the day. Five years later their measurements show that this air pollution is just as bad.

But help is finally at hand because earlier this year Client Earth, an environmental campaigning organisation, won its legal case at the Supreme Court requiring the government to set out plans by the end of 2015 for how they will ensure that air quality in every part of the UK will be in 'full compliance … by 2020 at the latest'.

Those plans are now up for consultation and - surprise, surprise - they're absolutely not good enough. They won't stop air pollution here in Hebden Bridge, or in Calderdale - where it causes around 100 deaths a year, many more than the number of road accident fatalities. - or across West Yorkshire, or nationally. If they are not radically strengthened then air pollution everywhere will go on causing deaths not just up to 2020 but beyond throughout the next decade. Year after year. Affecting you, your children and your community.

So why not tell the government they must do much better?. Calderdale Friends of the Earth have created a quick and easy online action so that you can respond to their consultation. It's here - and please do add a few sentences about your personal experiences of air pollution and what you want to see done.

But you've only got five days because the consultation closes on Friday 6th November.