RCP calls for legislation to reduce air pollution at source

Government says it has provided £575 million to help local authorities improve air quality, and will publish a revised “clearer” plan tackling the issue this year 

The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has published 19 recommendations to reduce air pollution aimed at national, regional and local governments across the UK.

Its new report, A breath of fresh air, is an update to the 2016 Every breath we take from the RCP and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. It sets out evidence accumulated over the past decade about the health dangers of air pollution even at low concentrations. 

The RCP is calling for legislation to reduce pollution at source – including emissions from wood burning, agriculture, transport and indoor pollutants. 

It also wants to see ‘robust pathways’ towards the delivery of the World Health Organisation’s 2021 Global Air Quality Guidelines on air-pollution levels and targeted support to protect the “most vulnerable and affected communities, who are often the groups and people least responsible for the problem”.   

Dr Mumtaz Patel, President of the RCP, said: “Air pollution can no longer be seen as just an environmental issue – it’s a public health crisis. We wouldn’t accept 30,000 preventable deaths from any other cause. 

“We need to treat clean air with the same seriousness we treat clean water or safe food. There is no safe level of air pollution.”

Professor Sir Stephen Holgate, RCP Special Adviser on air quality, UKRI clean-air champion and clinical professor of immunopharmacology, University of Southampton, was the lead author of the report.

He said: “The science is now overwhelming; air pollution is a major driver of disease across the life course – from low birth weight and childhood asthma to heart attacks and dementia. The cost of inaction is measured not only in lives lost, but in people not being able to live healthily and in billions drained from our economy every year.”

“We are largely managing air pollution using the evidence from the 20th century rather than the evidence that we have gained in the past 25 years.”

Dr Gary Fuller, UKRI clean air champion, Associate Professor in air pollution measurement at Imperial College London and joint editor of the report, said: “The UK is falling behind Europe in its legal protections on breathing polluted air.

“We are largely managing air pollution using the evidence from the 20th century rather than the evidence that we have gained in the past 25 years. We have a chance to mobilise this new knowledge to reviewing existing limits and policies to see if they are doing enough to combat the many thousands of preventable deaths that we are seeing every year.”

A government spokesperson responded: “We are committed to tackling this issue across the country. We have already provided £575 million to support Local Authorities to improve air quality and are developing a series of interventions to reduce emissions so that everyone’s exposure to air pollution is reduced.”

The spokesperson added that the government intends to publish a revised Environmental Improvement Plan later this year with delivery information “to help meet ambitious Environment Act targets”.

“It will be a clearer, prioritised plan for achieving environmental outcomes, including improving air quality,” said the spokesperson.