AQN Magazine - Issue 15 - May 2022

Issue 15

May 2022

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10th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL ISSUE Why air pollution is the world’s biggest public health issue A special report; The future of transport

A DECADE OF AIR QUALITY NEWS: THE PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE OF CLEAN AIR

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Editorial Comment and Contacts

Welcome to Air Quality News magazine Contacts Publisher: David Harrison d.harrison@spacehouse.co.uk 01625 614 000 Head of Content: Chloe Coules chloe@airqualitynews.com 07704 338277 Business Development Manager: Jason Coward jason@spacehouse.co.uk 07889 212414 Finance Manager: Jenny Leach jenny@spacehouse.co.uk 01625 614 000 Administration: Susanne Lingham office@spacehouse.co.uk 01625 614 000 Published 6 times a year

Air Quality News - published by Spacehouse Ltd, Pierce House, Pierce Street, Macclesfield. SK11 6EX. Tel: 01625 614 000

All rights reserved. Reproduction, in whole or part without written permission is strictly prohibited.

This month marks 10 years since Air Quality News was created to serve the growing community of air quality professionals.

Over that time, the magazine and sector have grown together, garnering greater awareness of the issue and calling on policy makers to take action to combat the 8.7 million premature deaths that air pollution from fossil fuel burning alone causes globally every year.

Taking over the reins of a magazine that has been elevating awareness of air quality, championing under-represented voices and issues in clean air, and providing its audience with authoritative and insightful coverage of the latest developments in the field for 10 years has been a real privilege, both professionally and personally.

I look forward to leading the team as we continue to introduce more people to this pressing issue and bring air quality to the forefront of the minds of policy makers and leaders in the UK and beyond for many more years to come.

In this issue, we explore how air quality has changed in the last 10 years and reflect on what the future holds for our air. Martin Guttridge-Hewitt explains why air pollution is the world’s biggest public health issue, and the newest member of our team Georgie Hughes examines whether the Ukraine crisis will help or hinder the shift to renewables.

Our special report looks at the theme of transport, with an investigation into the potential for smart road user charging to revolutionise our journeys, a discussion of the accessibility issues with EV charging, and a look at planning for cycling post-pandemic.

Thank you to our team, contributors and advertisers for 10 years of Air Quality News - here’s to the next decade!

Chloe Coules, Editor Tel: 07704 338277 chloe@airqualitynews.com

Printed on FSC certified paper stock, using vegetable oil inks.

Fulfilment and distribution using 100% recycled envelopes.

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Because clean air should be a right, not a privilege.

We are proud supporters of the 2022 Air Quality News Northern and National Conferences.

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Contents

Features Contents Pages 6-8: News Pages 10-13: A decade of air quality: the past, present and future of clean air Pages 6-8 News: Air pollution alters lung tissue and cancer susceptibility Air pollution levels: 2010-2020

Pages 24-26 Feature: How accessible is charging an electric car?

Pages 20-22: The road charging revolution: how smart technology will transform road use

Fine

Pages 10-13 Feature: A decade of air quality: the past, present and future of clean air

Source: Defra

Pages 16-17: Why air pollution is the world's biggest public health issue

Pages 28-29 A safe route home: Planning for post-pandemic cycling in British cities

Pages 24-26: How accessible is charging an electric car?

Pages 28-29: A safe route home: Planning for post-pandemic cycling in British cities Pages 32-33: Professor Prashant Kumar, Founding Director of the Global Centre for Clean Air Research

Pages 16-17 Feature: Why air pollution is the world's biggest public health issue

Pages 32-33 The Big Interview: Professor Prashant Kumar, Founding Director of the Global Centre for Clean Air Research

Pages 34-35: Will war in Ukraine lead to a quicker transition to renewable energy?

Pages 36-37: Liverpool and Air Quality Page 38-39: Air pollution litigation and the problem of causation

Pages 20-22 Feature: The road charging revolution: how smart technology will transform road use

Pages 34-35: Will war in Ukraine lead to a quicker transition to renewable energy?

Page 40-41: Marketplace Thanks to our contributors: Dan Scott and Harry Little (Clyde and Co) Martin Guttridge-Hewitt, Georgie Hughes, Katie Alexander, Paul Farrell (Liverpool City Council)

Pages 36-37 Feature: Liverpool and Air Quality

Partners airqualitynews.com

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News

in brief Experts join government to work on zero emission flight Aviation experts in the industry and government have formed a new group to work on advancing hydrogen and battery powered planes.

The Zero Emission Flight (ZEF) Delivery Group will support the development of zero emission aircraft and airport infrastructure.

It will also investigate legal adaptations that need to be made to allow for green aviation and aims to make the UK a frontrunner in the shift to sustainable flying.

The group was launched at the fifth meeting of the Jet Zero Council, an advisory forum of experts in aviation, which it will sit under.

The ZEF Delivery Group will be led by expert Rachel Gardner-Poole who has over 20 years experience in military and commercial aviation.

It will build on the Aerospace Technology institute’s (ATI) FlyZero project, which aims to zero-emission aviation by 2030, and the Department for Transport’s Zero Emission Flight Infrastructure project.

School run accounts for nearly 30% of morning traffic in London Data shows that up to 43% of car trips in some parts of London are linked to the school drop off, as a Europewide campaign to urge city leaders to create new school streets launches in the city.

YouGov polling commissioned by Clean Cities Campaign shows most parents would prefer to walk or cycle with their children to school.

59% said that walking or cycling is the best way to spend quality time with their children, while only 11% said driving is the best way.

However, across London over a quarter of peak car driver trips in the morning are for school dropoff, while up to 43% of rush-hour car trips in some parts of London are linked to the school drop-off, according to data from Transport for London.

The Europe-wide #StreetsforKids campaign encourages local authorities to temporarily close the road space outside schools to traffic.

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Air pollution alters lung tissue and cancer susceptibility Scientists studying the impact of fine particulate matter on the respiratory system believe tumours are caused indirectly through structural changes.

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esearchers at Nanjing University and the University of Macau, used samples of fine particulate matter (FPM) taken from seven locations in China, focusing on the effects on cytotoxic T-cells (CTLs), the body’s main defence against tumour growth.

One group of mice was administered with lung cancer cells

exposed to the particulates, another treated with unexposed cells.

Test subjects who were not exposed to FPM had CTLs recruited by the body and sent to the lungs to destroy the cancer cells, while those exposed struggled with this function. Researchers believe FPM dramatically compresses lung tissue structure, making it difficult for CTLs to travel through the

lungs to areas where tumours are developing.

Lead author of the study, Zhenzhen Wang, said: ‘Despite its potential to cause mutations, recent research suggests that FPM does not directly promote - and may even inhibit - the growth of lung cancer cells.

‘This suggests that FPM might lead to cancer through indirect means that support tumour growth.

For example, some studies suggest FPM can prevent immune cells from moving to where they are needed.’ Further investigation and analysis of the structure changes to lung tissue revealed that this was down to a collagen subtype, collagen IV. ‘Wherever FPM lands in the lung, increased peroxidasin activity leads to structural changes in the lung tissue that can keep immune cells out and away from growing tumour cells,’ added Wang.

EV battery range trebled in last decade The average battery range of an electric vehicle (EV) in the UK has more than tripled in the last decade, according to new research by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

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esearchers also found a 15-fold increase in choice of EV model in the past decade.

Average battery range has grown from 74 miles to almost 260 miles since 2011, finds the SMMT. When Britain’s first massproduced battery EV, the Nissan LEAF, was launched in 2011, just nine plug-in car models were available in the UK.

Today, there are over 140 plug-in models available, accounting for around one in five new cars sold this year, with a further 50 models expected to be launched by the end of 2022.

Mike Hawes, SMMT Chief Executive, said: ‘The everincreasing number of electric vehicle models launched by manufacturers since 2011 shows just how far Britain has come, with

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industry investment stimulating innovation at an ever-faster rate.

With almost 200 electrified models expected to be available by the end of the year, manufacturers are turning ambitions for zero and ultralow emission mobility into a reality, while motorists’ demand for these vehicles increases month by month.

‘The UK has an ambitious timescale to deliver net zero and road transport must shoulder the biggest burden delivering that goal.

The industry is up for the challenge, but we need all stakeholders, including government, charge point providers and energy companies, to match manufacturers’ commitment by providing the competitive incentives and infrastructure that assures a zero-emission future.’

News

Vast majority of UK schools exceed safe air pollution levels 97% of the UK schools monitored by Airly in the #LetSchoolsBreathe project experienced levels of PM2.5 that exceeded the safe norms set out by the World Health Organization (WHO).

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he research found that 35 out of 36 schools experienced unsafe levels of PM2.5, while the safe annual norm for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) was exceeded at 65% of schools.

Airly installed air pollution sensors in UK schools in April 2021 to help children and parents understand air pollution levels.

Sensors monitored air quality 24 hours a day in the immediate vicinity of 36 schools based in 9 UK cities.

Every school exceeded daily norms for NO2 and PM2.5. For 50% of schools, these daily norms were exceeded every other day, while remaining schools experienced exceedances every third day.

‘Pupils are exposed to high concentrations of NO2 and PM2.5 mainly during travel to school and in school playgrounds. Airly’s outdoor monitors have been positioned in such a way as to be able to determine what kind of air students breathe when they are near the school building,’ commented Airly spokesperson, Marcin Gnat.

‘Thanks to the data we have

collected, we know the situation is far from perfect, but the first step towards pollution-free schools has been made.

This step is to make air pollution a topic for discussion among school communities, having the necessary knowledge and understanding of the causes of pollution and its impact on health, we give hope to the young generation into a world with cleaner and healthy air.’

97% of UK addresses breach at least one WHO limit for air pollution Analysis by the Central Office of Public Interest (COPI) reveals nearly 3 in 4 UK addresses breach the World Health Organization (WHO) limits of three air pollutants, while almost all UK homes breach at least one WHO limit for toxic air.

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xperts at Imperial College London generated a 20 metres squared resolution national model of air pollution, with data recorded at 20,000 monitoring sites in over 320 UK council areas.

The data has been launched via a national pollution checker website, addresspollution.org.

Along with providing pollution levels at a specific address, the website also gives every property in the UK a percentile ranking, making it easy to compare air pollution levels across the country.

With the public release of this new data, COPI is pushing for clear legislation to publish

air pollution ratings by estate agents, property websites, surveyors and conveyancers, similar to the obligations to disclose the presence of other dangerous substances, such as asbestos and radon. Humphrey Milles, Founder of COPI and creator of the website, said: ‘Air pollution affects all of us. It’s a group one cause of cancer, just like asbestos. With this

new accurate data now publicly available, it would be shameful for the property industry to not start acting transparently. Lives depend on it.

‘Everyone has a right to know what they’re breathing before they buy or rent. And of course, we have our own part to play in this too. Air pollution isn’t insurmountable, and we can all do something about it.’

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in briefin brief Wildfires in US Pacific Northwest impact air pollution patterns across North America As blazes in the region increase in intensity and size, evidence shows an entire continent’s air quality is being adversely affected. A team of scientists at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has found that levels of carbon monoxide increased sharply as wildfires spread across the US Pacific Northwest last August.

The period of the year is particularly significant, as carbon monoxide is usually relatively low during summer due to chemical reactions in the atmosphere linked to changes in sunlight.

That carbon monoxide levels have jumped is a clear sign of the extent of the impact from wildfire smoke, according to those involved in the study.

The findings - based on satellite observations of atmospheric chemistry and global inventories of fires tracked over the past two decades, in addition to computer modelling analysing the potential impact of smoke - are considered to have serious implications for human health.

Slow government processes holding up roll out of green technologies Several consultations on negative emission technologies (NETs) are slowing down the deployment of government measures which could suck 5m tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere by 2030.

Despite the government’s ambitions, the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has heard that government clarity is required to roll out NETs. Energy Minister Rt Hon Greg Hands MP has explained a series of consultations are pending on business models for engineered greenhouse gas removals and core monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) principles for negative emissions technologies.

The role of the UK emissions trading scheme (UK ETS) as a long-term market for carbon extracted from the atmosphere is also being investigated.

However, the EAC has asked for assurance NETs will not be relied upon by major emitters to avoid cutting their own carbon emissions.

The organisation also raised concerns that bioenergy carbon capture and storage technologies (BECCS) will threaten the health of the natural environment.

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News

in brief Cycle parking costs nearly five times as much as car parking A new report finds that across London, a family of four would pay on average nearly 5 times more to park their cycles than a polluting petrol car.

The average cost of renting a space in a cycle hangar in London in £57.90, meaning a family of four would spend on average £231.60 a year parking four cycles, which is 4.6 times the average cost of parking a petrol car (£50) and seven times an electric car (£29).

The research by Fare City found that Islington Council charges up to 14 times as much for a family to park four cycles (£429) than a small petrol car (£30). Charles Critchell, Managing Director of FareCity, said: ‘London boroughs must not only redress the inequity between the cost of parking a cycle versus parking a car but go further and faster to ensure that current demand for cycle hangar spaces is met, and that future demand is nurtured and provided for.’

Sustainability-linked bonds would show UK government is committed to net zero Investors would be paid out more if Westminster fails on climate targets with ‘Chile-style’ sustainability bonds.

A new report by Social Market Foundation (SMF) calls on the UK government and Chancellor Rishi Sunak to take bolder steps to support the country’s rapidly growing ‘green sector’ and meet net zero and other climate commitments. Specifically, the study recommends issuing bonds linked directly to sustainability, which would pay out more money to investors if Westminster fails on its own environmental targets.

Chile recently became the first country in the world to issue a sovereign sustainability-linked bond, with other governments now considering following suit. Experts say that if the UK is to be considered a true world leader on sustainability-tied finance, taking this step is essential.

In 2019, Italian power utility company Enel became the first ever issuer of a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) bond, implying a financial penalty for not meeting net-zero targets.

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Top court adviser says individuals can sue EU governments over dirty air A top EU court adviser has said that individuals should be able to demand compensation from EU governments over harm they suffer as a result of illegal air pollution.

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he statement, by Advocate General Kokott, was issued to guide an ongoing court case in France, in which a citizen is asking for €21m in compensation for damage to his health caused by air pollution.

Kokott’s opinion confirms that people have an individual right to clean air and can claim damages, if certain tests have been met.She also highlights the particular impact of illegally dirty air on structurally underprivileged communities.

Environmental lawyers have hailed this latest step towards protecting the right to healthy air for people across the EU. ClientEarth lawyer Irmina Kotiuk said: ‘Advocate General Kokott has reiterated that air quality has profound links with fundamental rights.

‘Individuals have the right to breathe clean and healthy air and there are specific EU laws designed to guarantee this. But across the bloc, governments are failing people, with lifelong impacts, and shocking rates of

premature deaths. This legal confirmation that there are routes to hold those in power to account is a major breakthrough in the fight for clean and healthy air.’

The EU is currently updating the Ambient Air Quality Directive (AAQD) - its key air pollution law. ClientEarth’s lawyers say that the revised law should include a clear legal framework to clarify how people can hold their governments accountable for damage wrought on their lives by illegal air pollution.

Sales of new diesel cars fall by 90% Analysis by Clean Cities Campaign shows sales of diesel cars across the UK have fallen by 90% while electric car sales have increased by 1,674%.

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ess than 8% of all new car registrations in London were diesel in 2021, compared to 13% in 2020 and 20% in 2019. Across the UK, more electric vehicles were registered than diesel cars for the first time in the third quarter of 2021, following a 44% increase in BEVs compared to the same period in 2020. In the last five years, there has been a fall of 89.4% in diesel cars purchased in the UK, but petrol and diesel sales still outnumber EV sales

by five to one.

Oliver Lord, UK Head of Clean Cities Campaign, said: ‘After years of campaigning and industry smokescreens, the end is in sight for diesel cars. We’ll go far quicker and save thousands more lives if we give them a final push into the scrapyard.

Local authorities must do everything they can to nudge behaviour, including ending car parking permits for new diesel cars from next year and

committing to go diesel free by 2030. This would create an important milestone on the journey to healthy air and tackling the climate crisis.’

Recent research shows that diesel cars in London cause three times as much pollution as trucks and lorries.

To ensure diesel cars are phased out quickly, campaigners are calling for councils to stop providing permits for new diesel cars with an exemption for blue badge holders.

Air pollution exposure may cause heart attack within hour Exposure to air pollutants – even at levels below World Health Organization (WHO) air quality guidelines – may trigger a heart attack within an hour, according to a new study from China.

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he study found exposure to any level of four common air pollutants could quickly trigger the onset of acute coronary syndrome (ACS), where blood supply to the heart muscle is blocked, with the strongest risk within the first hour

of exposure. The researchers found the risks were highest among older people and when the weather was colder.

‘Another surprise was the nonthreshold effects of air pollution,’ said Haidong Kan, a professor in the School of Public Health at Fudan

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University in Shanghai. ‘In other words, any concentrations of air pollutants (such as fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide) recorded in the present study may have the potential to trigger the onset of a heart attack.’

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Feature

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London Low Emission Zone

2021

Portsmouth Clean Air Zone

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Norwich Low Emission Zone

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Oxford Zero Emission Zone

2015

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Brighton Low Emission Zone

2021

Birmingham Clean Air Zone

London Ultra Low Emission Zone

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Bath Clean Air Zone

A decade of air quality: the past, present and future of clean air Air Quality News editor Chloe Coules examines how much progress has been made on tackling air pollution in the past decade, and whether we should be optimistic about the future of our air.

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t is undeniable that significant progress has been made on air pollution in the UK since the introduction of the Clean Air Act in the 1950s. ‘All our major cities were very dirty, very grimy, and the stuff in the air contaminated all the buildings, shortened lives, and made life quality very poor. Today if you look outside, it’ll be a beautiful blue sky,’ explains Professor David Fowler CBE, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology fellow.

The last decade has been an especially pivotal time for public and political awareness and action to tackle

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the public health issue of dirty air.

‘Air quality, and certainly attitudes towards air quality, have changed significantly in the last decade,’ says Minister for Agri-Innovation and Climate Adaptation at DEFRA, Jo Churchill MP ‘Cleaning up our air is an absolute priority for me, for the department, and the wider government. We’ve made progress in the last 10 years – air pollution emissions have reduced significantly since 2010, with NO2 levels down by 44%, sulphur dioxide levels down by 70% and PM2.5 down 18%. Our Clean Air Strategy was

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described as an “example for the rest of the world to follow” by the World Health Organisation. But there is still more to do.’

Improvement in air quality in the past few decades has primarily been driven by a desire to reduce mortality from air pollution, argues Professor Fowler, but despite the air seeming much cleaner, the health impacts are still significant. ‘If you take 2020 or 2021, there are still about 30,000 people in the UK who die earlier than they should because of air quality.’

One of these people was nineyear-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah,

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who tragically died following an asthma attack in 2013. Ella and her family lived near the South Circular Road in Lewisham, and in the three years leading up to her death she had multiple seizures and was admitted to hospital 27 times.

A ground-breaking inquest in 2020 found that air pollution contributed to Ella’s death, with the coroner Philip Barlow concluding that the young girl had been exposed to ‘excessive’ levels of air pollution, making her the first person to have air pollution recognised as a cause of death.

Ella’s mother, Rosamund AdooKissi-Debrah, fought tirelessly alongside her lawyers over the past decade to deliver this landmark ruling, but for her it is only starting to sink in. She tells Air Quality News: ‘I don’t feel like I was able to take in the enormity [of the ruling], but now I’m beginning to appreciate it a bit more and how I want to use it in a positive way.’

In order to address the present health impacts of air pollution, the government has proposed new legally binding air quality targets that will see levels of PM2.5 reduced to 10 micrograms per cubic metre by 2040.

Ms Churchill tells Air Quality News: ‘Last year, we passed our world leading Environment Act, and I think that is a real game changer. We are already consulting on legally-binding targets under the Environment Act, including on air quality. In particular, I want to reiterate the action we are taking on PM2.5 – including an innovative population exposure reduction target which will focus on cutting people’s exposure to this harmful pollutant by over a third, rather than exclusively focusing on reducing the sources of air pollution.

Following the tragic death of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, we have set out key actions to improve air quality in the short and long term, protect vulnerable groups and effectively communicate information to the public.

‘I am a former health minister and I understand that air pollution is the single biggest environmental risk to public health. I want to make sure that our children and grandchildren are able to breathe clean air. I would also

like to thank all of those, including Rosamund Kissi-Debrah – who have done so much to raise awareness of the issue and to those working on solutions.’

However, Rosamund argues that we have not made enough progress to tackle air pollution in the last decade: ‘We still have illegal levels of air pollution in 70% of the UK. The government have brought out this new consultation, which is not strong enough – the WHO targets they are talking about are the 2005 targets and they have said they will implement them by 2040, 35 years too late. In the

public health crisis,’ she explains.

Looking forward: what to expect in the next decade In the next decade, Professor Fowler predicts that we will continue to see a slow decline in emissions of particulate matter and a continued decrease in NO2. There is also evidence that we are past the global peak in sulphur emissions and close to the peak in NOx. However, as we clean up vehicle emissions and bring down NOx levels, ozone levels may increase,

Nine-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah died in 2013 from a severe asthma attack.

Following an inquest, she became the first person in the UK to have air pollution on their death certificate in 2020. meantime, last year the WHO came out with new guidelines.’

She tells Air Quality News that she believes the proposed targets are ‘an insult’ to her daughter’s memory.

‘They need to be more ambitious. They can have interim targets, but they need to bin the 2005 targets and move onto the 2021 targets because ultimately that will save lives.’

On one hand, Rosamund thinks it is positive that awareness of air pollution has risen in the past decade and has become a key issue for voters, but she does not think this alone is enough.

‘In a way we have moved along but there is a lack of urgency – it is a

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explains Professor Fowler. ‘Ozone will gradually become a bigger problem, and ozone has a geographical scale that is global rather than UK specific.

So, policies in the UK are important to contribute to that, but the UK on its own cannot control the Northern Hemisphere background ozone, it’s only action by all countries together [that can control it], and so far, there are no international agreements like the ones we have in Europe for sulphur and nitrogen.’

Ozone is not the main cause of human health dangers from air pollution, but it does contribute to the health burden, and rising ozone 11

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would have concerning implications for global food supply, warns Professor Fowler: ‘It does have effects on crop productivity, and there is a worry about global supplies of food. It significantly depresses the yields of some of the major crops like wheat and soybean.’

While peaks of ozone have decreased in the UK and across Europe and North America in the last decade, the global background levels have been growing, so the international burden of ozone will be one of the key challenges in the next decade.

Professor Fowler also explains that we have done very little globally to tackle ammonia levels in the last decade, making it a major concern for the future. ‘The one pollutant we seem to be making almost no progress with globally is ammonia, and ammonia

Environment Minister Jo Churchill echoes this concern, saying: ‘The transboundary nature of air pollution is a challenge, so we will continue to work with international neighbours and support the UNECE Convention for Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution to manage down both domestic and global emissions.’

In the UK, the government is optimistic that we will continue to see air quality improvements in the next decade. Ms Churchill comments: ‘Air quality has improved since 2010, and the most recent figures all suggest that we are on the right trajectory.

Emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, PM2.5, PM10, NMVOCs, and ammonia all decreased between 2019 and 2020. Our latest emission projections published in March 2022

Air pollution levels: 2010-2020

reductions could be offset by increases in pollution in developing cities.

‘It looks from the satellite remote sensing data as though maybe the peak of global pollution has taken place in the last decade, but we need a bit more data and analysis to be sure. We could be past the peak, but of course if you look at the very rapidly growing cities in Africa, you might wonder whether Africa will go through the same development cycle as Europe, East Asia and North America,’ explains Professor Fowler.

‘If they took green approaches they could avoid these peaks in PM, but at the moment it looks as though the trends are going in a similar direction to all the other continents that have gone through this very serious evolution problem.’

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Source: Defra

is very important because it’s a large contribution to PM. It comes from agriculture and all the industrial nations with intensive agricultural industry have large ammonia emissions, and they haven’t come down. So, as we clean up everything else, you can see ammonia stands out as the thing globally that we’ve done the least about.’

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showed that we expect to continue to see reductions this decade. And our new air quality targets, together with our Clean Air Strategy, will help drive down some of the most harmful pollutants even further.’

Current data also suggests that we may be past the global peak in air pollution - meaning that the worst may be behind us - but there is concern that

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Climate change is also a doubleedged sword for air pollution. On one hand, net zero policies have vast potential to make air quality better, but some policies do not fit well with air pollution reduction and may even worsen air quality, warns Professor Fowler.

For example, a popular policy is to plant more trees to tackle emissions,

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British factories have produced a quarter of a million electric cars, vans, buses and trucks in the last decade.

Source: SMMT but some species can be detrimental to air quality, explains Professor Fowler: ‘If we have vast plantations of trees which emit large amounts of VOCs, we would be benefitting the climate but degrading air quality, because the VOCs would make particulate matter and they would also contribute to ozone formation.’

‘Overall, we must ensure that the work we are doing to achieve net zero continues to align with policies that improve air quality,’ agrees Ms Churchill.

The Minister highlights that innovation will be key to keep making progress on air pollution in the coming years.

‘Innovation is absolutely key to address air quality. We need to go further and faster to decarbonise transport. The Prime Minister’s 10 Point Plan for a green industrial revolution set out our intention to phase out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030, having already committed £1.5 billion and pledged another £2.8 billion to support the electric vehicle market.

‘We are also aiming for half of all journeys in towns and cities to be cycled or walked by 2030 to help lower congestion as we aim to better air quality in urban areas more widely,’ she says.

She adds that collaboration between the different levels of government is crucial to progress: ‘To address the issues we are facing, we need national and local governments to work together to deliver change. We need to do it in a way that delivers the clean air that we all want, without creating unnecessary burdens on businesses and residents.

‘We have worked closely with local authorities to improve air quality and continue to do so, strengthening Local Air Quality Management guidance to help maximise the benefits of local action, and awarding £42 million across 500 projects on the Air Quality Grant scheme since 2010. Going forward, my continued focus is working with local authorities and my colleagues at the Department of Health and Social Care including the Chief Medical Officer - to review how we communicate air quality

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information more effectively to ensure the public, and vulnerable groups in particular, have the information they need to protect themselves.’

Rosamund echoes this, saying the government needs to invest in public transport and inform the public of the detrimental impacts of air pollution.

She says she would like us to get to a stage where there are leaflets about air pollution in the waiting rooms at hospitals and GPs, and where public messaging on air pollution is of a similar level to what was seen during the Covid-19 pandemic.

She also hopes that in the next decade clean air will become a human right: ‘I believe my daughter’s right to life was breached, and I would like that put right.’

Only time will tell whether all of these aims will be achieved, but it is clear that governments will be under tighter scrutiny going forward as the public wakes up to the catastrophic impacts of air pollution, and we will look back on this decade as a point of no return for clean air.

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Challenge. How to know where to act?

Located in the southwest of London, with over 185,000 residents and several major corporations headquartered in the borough, The London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham (LBHF) is committed to improving air quality for residents through positive sustainability changes, making effective decisions in the right locations and measuring success with accurate data collected from hyper-local, low cost, air quality sensors with street-level accuracy.

Problems caused by high traffic volumes became the largest contributors of air pollution in the borough, compounded by regular use of streets as a thoroughfare for vehicles originating outside the borough. The council wanted a method to measure the results and prove the effectiveness of the restriction zones to residents. Traditional air quality solutions available to Hammersmith & Fulham would not be sufficient in measuring air quality variations at the required frequency and density. LBHF needed spatial and temporal information with sufficient granularity to measure air quality changes at a per-road level, to review traffic interventions and prove their success in reducing pollution with an easy to deploy, affordable and detailed analysis of air quality per street.

LBHF became the first borough to declare a climate emergency in July 2020, pledging to resolve an air pollution and traffic congestion problem and addressing the 80% of congestion attributed to vehicles originating outside the Borough.

Solution.

Vortex provided a low-cost air quality monitoring solution that enabled the deployment of a dense network of hyper-local air quality sensors to provide real time air quality data to the council. The sensors are all SIM card free and connected wirelessly through a mesh network that’s driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning configurations. Implementing this technology allows the system to identify and execute calibrations and updates remotely, reducing LBHF’s on-site resource costs.

Vortex’s off the shelf solution provided: Air Quality Monitoring within the council’s budget requirements Street-Level data accuracy of Air Pollution Unprecedented Coverage – World’s densest deployment Detailed analysis of their entire constituency Public access to data on their neighbourhood Lifetime guarantee

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PM2.5

PM10

NO2

Outcomes: Accurate Data for better informed decisions.

VTX Air has identified high pollution transmission points that were previously unknown. As a result, LBHF’s award winning Traffic Congestion and Pollution Reduction Scheme has reduced carbon emissions by 1 tonne a day and improved air quality by 50% for residents. Using the technology, the public have been able to see their air quality through a publicly available portal to better understand the impact that the Scheme is having on their health. The key benefit for LBHF was identifying where the pollution is originating and understanding the sources of pollution that are generated inside the borough.

LBHF’s installation will further its dense concentration and become the largest scale air quality monitoring network in Europe with a total of 500 sensors deployed before the end of the year.

We needed a system that allowed us to recognise subtle changes in local pollution relating to traffic behaviour. When searching, we found traditional monitors to be far too expensive to install in the density required to see the changes.”

John Galsworthy Director, Parking, London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham.

PM2.5

Highlighting two events

Air Pollution Feature

Why air pollution is the world's biggest public health issue From respiratory illnesses to heart disease, the world’s toxic air is quietly killing millions each year. Leading health experts speak to Martin Guttridge-Hewitt about an urgent crisis policymakers can no longer ignore.

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hen the World Health Organization (WHO) published its Global Strategy on Health, Environment, and Climate Change in February 2020, the message was clear. We are rapidly running out of time to mitigate and reverse the devastating environmental impact of industrialisation and urbanisation, which, alongside widespread loss of species and habitat, directly causes 13 million deaths each year.

The figure accounts for one quarter of all human fatalities. A range of factors contribute to this, but none are more concerning than air pollution, now responsible for the annual loss of 7 million lives. Unsurprisingly, where people

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live significantly impacts the risk. Poorer communities are most vulnerable because lower cost homes are often closer to polluting infrastructure than higher value properties.

Globally, Swiss air quality specialist IQAir ranks 35 cities in India among the 50 most polluted on Earth, with levels of toxic fine particulate matter (PM2.5) on an average day in New Delhi double that of Beijing, itself a metropolis notorious for smog.

In Europe and North America air quality has improved, helping reduce worldwide PM2.5 exposure to some degree.

94% of the world’s population breathed this in circa 2010, falling to 90% by 2016. Nevertheless, this year alone

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has seen public health warnings issued for English cities including London, Newcastle, Leeds and Hull due to dangerous air pollution. Even in Scotland, the UK country with the cleanest air, only two towns rank ‘good’ for air quality: Dunfermline and Renfrew.

‘We really need to focus not just on deaths, which is traumatic and huge, but also emphasise this is reducing quality of life years for many people around the world due to chronic disease… The cost of this to health systems is huge,’ says Dr. Maria Neira, WHO’s Director of Public Health and Environment, explaining this means people suffering impaired mobility, pain, and other symptoms on several days, weeks or months each year. ‘Whether you die from malaria or exposure to air pollution, both are terrible losses.

But people always want to compare. So, if we put malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS together, [air pollution] is bigger. It’s like tobacco, and we have a legally binding treaty for that.’

Currently, the same cannot be said for air pollution.

The WHO recently updated advice on what constitutes ‘safe air’, slashing advisory limits on PM 2.5 and other key pollutants. Countries including the UK, US, and several EU members have scrambled to change legislation to reflect this, although so far none aim to match the organisation’s recommendations this decade. And, sadly, without a global agreement any action at regional or national level will only offer marginal results due to the fact air pollution travels.

Simply put, a universally binding agreement on tackling toxic air is essential and cannot come soon enough given the myriad associated health issues.

People suffering moderate to severe asthma are 40% more likely to experience acute episodes on high air pollution days. Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah is a tragic example of this, a nine-year-old who lived near London’s busy South Circular road and became the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed on their death certificate following a fatal asthma attack, leading the coroner to call for UK regulations to meet those of the WHO. Elsewhere, new research by Nanjing University and the University of Macau suggests PM2.5 actually changes the structure of our bodies. The joint study shows particulates severely compress lung tissue, blocking vital cytotoxic T-cells from attacking tumours in their early stages, allowing them to develop unhindered.

And respiratory diseases are just one part of the story.

‘Another area we need to worry very much about, but at the moment are super calm on, is the neurodevelopment of children. You see all of these young parents taking incredible care of their children, then taking them to school in a car and keeping the engine on. The pollution generated around that is something that needs to be explained much more,’ Dr Neira replies when asked for examples of less obvious health risks from air pollution. ‘Another is pregnant women. We’re trying to protect them from infections, dangerous foods, but we are not aware that if they breathe polluted air particulates it can close the placenta barrier and damage the development of the brain in the womb.

Some of this will only manifest in adulthood diabetes, noncommunicable diseases, and of course low IQ.’ The WHO is not alone in trying to raise awareness and pressure policymakers locally, nationally, and

internationally. In January 2020, the British Heart Foundation launched its You’re Full of It campaign to try and highlight the link between air pollution and cardiovascular disease. Dr Mark Miller is Senior Research Fellow at the British Heart Foundation Centre for Cardiovascular Science at the University of Edinburgh and is quick to explain that breathing in a toxic atmosphere directly damages organs such as the heart.

‘It is now well established that air pollution is associated with a wide range of cardiovascular conditions, including heart disease, heart failure, stroke, abnormal heart rhythms and blood clots,’ he says. ‘Scientists have a good understanding of the biological processes by which air pollution detrimentally effects the function of our heart,

blood and blood vessels, and these processes will make many cardiovascular conditions worse. It is also clear that air pollution is linked to other major risk factors for cardiovascular disease like high blood pressure and diabetes. The interactions between air pollution and other risk factors for disease worsens health inequalities in our society. There is an urgent need to reduce air pollution and the cardiovascular effects associated with it.’

Based on the evidence, it’s impossible not to understand Dr Miller and Dr Neira’s concerns. The air pollution death toll has long been unacceptable, and ‘baking-in’ significant future health problems is a terrifying reality.

With that in mind, the real question is at what point do we take meaningful collective action, rather than individual incremental steps which, in the long run, represent the costliest of all options.

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THE FUTURE OF TRANSPORT An Air Quality News Special Report

• T he smart road charging revolution • H ow accessible is EV charging?

• P lanning for post-pandemic cycling

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The road charging revolution: how smart technology will transform road use Air Quality News editor Chloe Coules investigates the potential for smart road user charging to revolutionise how we pay for the negative impacts of road use, from air pollution and congestion to road safety and maintenance.

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o tackle air pollution and reach net zero, local and national governments are working to make journeys more sustainable. However, as navigating the UK’s growing network of Clean Air Zones becomes more complicated, experts and policy makers are starting to call for a more dynamic solution to paying for the negative impacts of our road use.

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is one of the first local leaders to open the conversation around one potential solution: smart road user charging.

Smart road user charging involves charging drivers per mile travelled and could take into account a range of factors including how polluting the vehicle is, location, and what public transport alternatives are available, with exemptions possible for people on low incomes or with disabilities.

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Many experts argue the transition to this kind of system is crucial to reaching environmental aims, but making this change won’t be easy.

What’s wrong with our current system?

In the UK, drivers of fuel cars pay two forms of tax – Fuel Duty and Vehicle Exercise Duty – which help to cover the costs of road use. Electric vehicles (EVs) are exempt from these taxes, meaning the switch to EVs will leave a growing hole in the Chancellor’s budget.

This makes moving over to smart road user charging in the UK ‘almost an inevitability’, according to Nick Ruxton-Boyle, Director of Environment at Marston Holdings.

On top of this, the growing network of Clean Air Zones, Low Emission Zones and Zero Emission Zones in the

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UK is becoming confusing and arduous for drivers to navigate, with each local scheme having its own rules and exemptions. Despite contributing to air pollution, congestion and road safety issues, EVs are also not affected by these schemes, leaving a gap in the regulation of these vehicles.

Experts predict that the UK will need to switch over to a dynamic system of road charging in the near future, allowing local authorities and government to tackle issues like air pollution and congestion, and fund road maintenance and transport services equitably.

Despite slow uptake of road charging in the UK compared to other countries, there are examples of this technology in the nation, including the congestion charge in London and toll roads.

However, the road charging technology used in the UK is ‘fairly basic’, explains Matt Finch, Director of

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‘Most people when they talk about road pricing and road charging cannot see past a better system than putting something in the car and just letting it be tracked automatically.’

The benefits of smart road user charging

Transport & Environment UK. ‘The London congestion charge uses automatic name plate recognition cameras, and that software is pretty advanced, but it is still basic in the sense that you have to go around and stick a camera up everywhere, and these cameras break, and you have to spend time maintaining them.’

Nicolas Bosetti, Head of Data & Insight at Centre for London, echoes this message: ‘The [ULEZ and congestion charging] are seen as good starting points, and definitely tools that were innovative in their time, but the congestion charge is cordon-based, which means that you pay it once and then you can drive as much as you want within that zone. That flat charge doesn’t encourage you to reduce your driving and doesn’t reflect the fact that the more you drive, the more you impose costs on the environment.’

‘In terms of the ULEZ, things have moved on with it being expanded, but it also feels like it doesn’t impact the majority of people in that a lot of vehicles are already compliant, which is definitely a good thing on one end, but on the other means that for a lot of people it is not an incentive to use more sustainable options or options that are better for air quality in the city.’

Matt Finch tells Air Quality News that to roll out effective road charging across the UK, we will need to move to a smarter system based on GPS tracking:

Using GPS tracking to develop smart road charging in the UK is not only more effective than our current cordon-based approach, but it is also cheaper. ‘To have a national camera-driven scheme, you need tens of thousands of cameras that cost money, and then they all need to be maintained and that costs money. With a GPS scheme, all new cars have GPS systems in them, so it suddenly becomes a lot cheaper to set up,’ explains Matt.

Smart road user charging also allows drivers to make more informed decisions about how and when they travel, according to Nick Ruxton-Boyle.

‘If you have to pay per trip, it makes you think more about the value of that trip to you as a user and to the environment.

Another benefit to it is that the user pays and those who create the damage of road use pay more - it’s quite simple and equitable in that sense, rather than some of the blunt taxation tools we’ve historically had.’

‘It’s more progressive as it’s based on how much you drive, it’s a lot more responsive to the local situation as well,’ argues Nicolas Bosetti. ‘It depends on whether you’re driving at a time when there’s a lot of traffic in an area and a lot of pollution, and whether you have got a convenient, realistic alternative like public transport. It adapts a lot more to the individual characteristics of your journey.’

While the congestion charge and Low Emission Zones each have a specific target, smart road user charging allows you to address multiple issues simultaneously. ‘We need a solution which is able to have an impact on congestion, air quality, the climate emergency and road safety,’ explains Nicolas Bosetti.

What is stopping us from implementing it?

Despite these benefits, politicians warn that implementing sophisticated road charging is a long way off. Shirley

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Rodrigues, Deputy Mayor of London for Environment, told Air Quality News: ‘[Meeting the Mayor’s environmental targets] would ideally require some form of smart road user charging by the mid to late ‘20s - certainly by the end of the decade.

The Mayor has already said that we would keep this under review in the Mayor’s Transport Strategy, but that is going to take some time - nowhere has that sophisticated level of charging in place so it is going to require a lot of brains and innovation to come up with the technology, the approach to how you manage it, the back office systems and so on.’

However, transport experts claim that the technology is already widely used in other ways, and the real question is who will implement it first.

‘The technology is ready and available, it just needs someone to decide what type of system we are likely to have, if any, and then go out to tender and say, “Who can build this technology platform for me?”’ argues Matt Finch.

Nick Ruxton-Boyle explains that in-car technology is already widely used by insurance companies and mobility apps like Uber to monitor and manage services, and we already have roadside technology like ANPR cameras in use across Clean Air Zones. We also already have the satellite technology like GPS and the legacy back-office systems needed to manage and enforce a scheme.

‘Each little part of the puzzle, each module of a dynamic system, already exists and is used in the public sector in a variety of ways.’

If the technology is ready, what is holding us back from making the switch to smart road charging?

‘The technology is ready - I don’t think the politics is quite ready yet,’ explains Nick Ruxton-Boyle. ‘It’s a big shift to go to a charging per mile system based on the blunt tool of taxation we have now, and as we have seen, consecutive and subsequent political authorities and governments have shied away from this type of solution for a variety of reasons.’

Matt Finch echoes this: ‘The problem isn’t technological, it would be rolling it out, and then the problem becomes political.’

He explains that scrapping our current system is difficult because it is 21

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so established: ‘We have always built roads and paid for them via taxes, and once something has been established it becomes the norm, and it is quite hard to change that norm.’ Bringing the public with them while making this switch will be crucial for politicians, and there is concern that the public will object to road charging on the grounds that it might be unfair or raise privacy issues.

However, Nick argues that it is an easier task to make the move than it was 10 years ago, with buying as you consume becoming the norm.

Matt also tells Air Quality News that potential [privacy concerns] can be addressed in how the scheme is implemented: ‘I think there will be people who flag privacy concerns] for sure, and the way to combat it is to give those people the option to just pay a fixed amount and make it relatively high.

‘Most people now have a smartphone, so at any one point they send out signals as to where they are. Is it that much of a stretch [to have GPS tracking in your car,] especially if it meant you would pay less? It’s impossible to know, I think there are privacy concerns, and some people would opt out and would be happy to pay more, but a lot of people would opt in.’ Nick also highlights that in order to make road charging an effective solution to issues like air pollution and congestion, there needs to be viable alternatives to car use. Public transport networks will need to be improved, especially in rural areas, and fares will need to be affordable to discourage driving.

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How should it be implemented?

One of the biggest debates around the switch to smart road charging is who should implement it.

Nicolas Bosetti argues that linking these schemes to local public transport funding would help to make them more acceptable to the public: ‘You are making it clear to people that one of the reasons why you have got this pricing in place is that it enables you to improve the quality of roads locally, but also it enables you to give out mobility credits locally - discounts on shared and public transport - and also invest in the quality and expansion of the public transport system, so people understand the end result.’

London has been leading on developing smart road charging, partly due to its devolved powers and funding, but Nicolas thinks that other cities can follow suit as more devolution happens.

‘It is important for these schemes to be designed in the interest of the cities and citizens who are going to be paying for them and affected by them or benefitting from them.

‘It makes sense for London to be designing its system, but there is a case for government to help coordinate systems and make sure that if you are driving from one to another it is easy and straightforward to do that.’

However, Matt argues that it would be too expensive for small towns and cities to implement these schemes, which raises questions of whether a national approach is needed.

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‘I think it needs to be national and it needs to be countrywide,’ says Nick.

‘We saw with Covid the challenges of the different rules across the devolved nations, so it has got to be adopted and delivered across the country.

‘What we are seeing with Clean Air Zones is even though they are partially centralised, there are local differences for each of the different zones in terms of which vehicles are included with the local exemptions and discounts, so it just creates a more complicated system.

‘That is not to say a dynamic system cannot have its local elements - you can charge more to go into a city centre at a peak time for example - but at the moment the way in which it works regionally is quite complicated for a user or driver to understand how to go about paying the charges and making a decision to drive or not and as to what vehicle to invest in. A national scheme will make those decisions a lot easier.’

Despite debate over whether these schemes should be local or national, experts and politicians agree that we will need to introduce this scheme by the end of the decade.

‘We have certainly got some really strong deadlines in place for the sale of petrol and diesel vehicles and for decarbonisation, so I believe these are some of the timeframes we need to be considering,’ explains Nick.

‘The EV rollout trajectory along with the revenue trajectory for the Chancellor is going to drive this, and it has got to be within the next decade in my view.’

The National Air Quality Conference Lords Cricket Ground 9th November 2022 “The future of air quality” For more information visit: www.airqualitynews.com/our-conferences/

Special Report

How accessible is charging an electric car?

Katie Alexander explores the accessibility and safety issues surrounding the current EV charging network in the UK, and investigates how we can make EVs a viable mode of transport for all.

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f the UK is going to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, it’s crucial we move away from petrol and diesel vehicles.

In 2019, the Government recorded that 27% of the UK’s total emissions came from the transport industry.

Of this, 91% came from road transport vehicles such as cars, vans, and buses. Considering these figures, it’s obvious that to reach net zero in time something must change within the transport sector.

Of course, the cleanest methods of travelling would be walking, cycling, and taking public transport. However, it’s clear that as a population we’re not quite ready to give up ownership of domestic vehicles. Electric vehicles (EVs) are one of the most viable sources of eco-friendly transport we have, but there are some accessibility concerns with their use.

While some EV drivers can simply charge their vehicles at home, this is not always possible. The London Assembly Environment Committee suggests roughly a third of UK drivers do not have access to off-street parking, jumping to 60% in London. Those who cannot charge an EV at home are left to use the public charging network.

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Unfortunately, a big proportion of the UK’s infrastructure has been designed without accessibility and inclusivity in mind. Motability is one of the many disability charities in the UK who have conducted research into the accessibility of EV charging infrastructure.

The charity’s research estimates that there could be 1.35 million disabled drivers or passengers who are reliant on public charging infrastructure by 2035, yet many of them may not be able to use it.

Is the UK ready for everyone to drive electric?

The EV market in the UK has been growing rapidly, even with the ongoing issues caused by the pandemic. Pure EVs are the most sought after vehicles in the UK currently, with figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) showing sales of EVs increasing dramatically month on month.

Although it is possible to charge an EV without off-street parking, it can be difficult. EV drivers who cannot charge

Special Report

that little thought has been made of individuals who have a disability or accessibility needs.

Those using public EV charging stations with a disability may face a wide range of issues. EV chargers are often fitted with high curbs and heavy cables. Sometimes there are even bollards in front, which are put in place to protect the charge point.

Steven, who drives a Nissan Leaf and struggles with his mobility, tells Air Quality News that publicly charging his EV can be challenging, especially if he has not used that charging station before. ‘Thankfully, I charge at home most of the time but when I use the public network it is really difficult. There isn’t a lot of space to move around. It would be better if there was more space like you get in a parent and child space.’

Moreover, Steven highlights how he had never encountered some of these issues prior to driving an EV. ‘I don’t understand why it is so much harder to charge than it would be to go to a petrol garage,’ he says.

It’s not just physical barriers either. All EV charging spots should be clearly labelled and identified, because if charge points are not visible and recognisable, some motorists may struggle to understand where they can charge their EV. It’s also important to note that EV drivers could face a range of different payment systems while charging their vehicle in public. There is currently not a universal design for charge points. Therefore, motorists may need to download appropriate apps prior to arriving before they can charge their vehicle.

While these may seem like minor inconveniences, they can make it near impossible to charge an EV for someone with accessibility needs. It’s also important to note that all these barriers are not found at a conventional fuel station, so it would be perfectly reasonable for companies to design EV chargers without these barriers.

their vehicles at home are forced to make use of charge points available to them on the UK public network, or at work if they’re provided.

When we look at the UK public network, we unfortunately find an array of issues that could put anyone off buying an EV. According to ZapMap, the UK’s leading app for EV drivers, there are over 30,000 charge points available on the UK public network.

But how many of them cater for those with accessibility issues? Emilia Platoni, Partnerships Manager at Motability, said ‘While the transition to EVs is still a few years away, the infrastructure needed for people to charge their cars is being planned and created now. It’s vital that this is done with accessibility in mind, which will benefit not only disabled people but make EV charging easier for everyone.’

What accessibility issues could EV motorists be met with?

As the Government accelerates its plans to ensure the UK has a successful public charging network, there are concerns

Figures from Motability suggest that because of their home parking situation, 50% of disabled drivers are unlikely to be able to charge an EV at home. With one in five people in the UK living with a disability, this is a huge group of individuals who could find it nearly impossible to switch to an EV.

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Special Report

Safety while charging an EV There are also potential safety issues with the UK’s current network of charge points. While there are now lots of EV charge points across the UK, unfortunately some of these are in secluded, dark and unlit areas.

Last year, TV presenter Maddie Moate made the switch to an EV and bought a pure electric Kia e-Niro. After owning her EV for a few months and using it regularly to travel up and down the country, Maddie highlights how impractical the public network can be. Not only does she highlight the ongoing issues of reliability with the public network, but also that she can sometimes feel unsafe while charging her EV. Caroline, who owns the all-electric Mercedes EQC, echoed Maddie’s concerns. She expressed that she would not feel comfortable being on her own in most places that she has had to charge her vehicle in the past.

When you charge an EV on the go you could be waiting for 30-45 minutes for a suitable amount of charge. This could mean waiting on your own in a dark and dingy car park without streetlights.

Caroline went on to say that she regularly plans her journeys using ZapMap to ‘avoid the chargers that are in the middle of nowhere’. While Caroline understands that convenience is an important factor to installing charge points, at this point in time she does not think owning an EV is as accessible as owning a conventional vehicle.

As the Government pushes to make EVs a mainstream form of transport, there should be more consideration of the accessibility, availability and safety of EV charge points.

How can we make charging an EV more accessible?

It’s clear there are ongoing accessibility issues for EV users who rely on the UK’s public charging network, but how 26

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do we change that? The first step is challenging the fact that there is no guidance or legislation involved when designing and installing EV infrastructure.

Motability, in partnership with the Government, is sponsoring the British Standards Institution (BSI) to design a national standard for accessible EV charging. This would be a world first, if it were introduced, and would be available to those designing new EV charge points.

Emilia Platoni argues: ‘In the absence of legislation, stakeholders ranging from councils to supermarkets, manufacturers to installers, all have a part to play in making public charging points accessible. This is why having a standard for accessible charging is so important. It creates an expectation that EV charging should be made accessible as well as providing clarity on how to create that in practice.’

Designability specialise in human-centred design practices and will work alongside Motability to create innovative EV chargers that are accessible to all. They are already developing user-friendly charging prototypes that will be tested with disabled individuals across the UK this summer.

Ben Carey, Marketing and Communications Officer at Designability, says: ‘With careful consideration, all of these barriers to accessibility can be overcome. By doing so we not only ensure EV charging is accessible to disabled people, but it also improves access for all.’

While the Government is keen to promote all-electric driving, it’s important to consider that a big investment has already been made into public EV infrastructure without thought of inclusivity. This is a real issue for many disabled individuals living in the UK and will only get worse as new petrol and diesel vehicles are banned in 2030.

Governments, local authorities and providers need to consider the accessibility of EV charge points sooner rather than later in order to avoid splurging money on EV chargers that cannot be used by many drivers.

19 October 2022 Park Plaza Westminster Bridge

Who will be our next #HighwaysHeroes?

NEW for 2022: Active Travel Scheme of the Year Award Open to organisations, highway authorities or joint submissions (including the client), this category will be judged on the qualitative and quantitative impact of the scheme and will cover design, use and safety criteria.

FREE online nomination open at

highwaysawards.co.uk

#highwaysawards22

Special Report

A safe route home: Planning for post-pandemic cycling in British cities

With more and more demand for active travel infrastructure across the UK, local authorities have a responsibility to keep users safe. Martin Guttridge-Hewitt considers the risks to the UK’s pedal-powered commuters from other road users, and their emissions.

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n 1984 UK attitudes towards active travel looked very different from today. Back then, British cycling successes at major events like the Commonwealth and Olympic Games had yet to inspired the public to ride more, and the Covid-19 pandemic was almost four decades away. As was the ‘bike boom’ it triggered over concerns about crowded public transport and the struggle to stay fit while stuck inside for months on end with sports facilities closed.

Nevertheless, the roots of the National Cycle Network were planted in 1984, with the 14-mile Bristol and Bath Railway Path opening.

11 years on, the network officially launched under the stewardship of

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the charity Sustrans, with £42.5m of National Lottery money and 500miles of routes. Today, that has grown to 12,739miles from southern England to the Scottish islands, passing within one mile of half the UK population along the way. Pre-pandemic, 765m annual trips were made on the system, boosting the national economy in 2019 by £2.1bn through tourism and leisure alone.

The NCN shows people embrace alternatives to motorised transport when convenient provision exists, and local businesses benefit. Not to mention the environment. In 2021 an Imperial College London study of 2,000 people in seven European cities concluded that ditching car for bike

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just once a week reduced our personal carbon footprint by around 0.5 tonnes annually. But while advantages of more people cycling are clear, safety issues have long been a concern.

When six cyclists died on London roads in just two-weeks during November 2013 widespread demands for infrastructure improvements and redesigns soon followed, and steps were taken in subsequent years.

Much more recently, the Department for Transport introduced LTN1/20, standardising blueprints for safer cycle lanes, including the amount of space and types of junction crossings required. The impact of this is significant.

‘There’s lots in there that seriously

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improves on the thinking of previous decades. [It] shows just how far cycling infrastructure has come since the days of a painted line on the road,’ says Ed Plowden, Paths for Everyone Programme Director at Sustrans. ‘The recent formation of Active Travel England is also important, because [the organisation upholds guidance by] only funding infrastructure plans from local authorities that are LTN1/20 compliant. And it will be assessing the general performance of highways authorities in providing for active travel.

‘Guidance has clearly been produced by people with a great deal of knowledge of what works and personal experience of cycling, and it emphasises the need for designers to have personal experience of cycling,’ he continues of how new regulations have been developed, and who by. ‘Some local authorities now include cycle lane users and user groups within the design consultation process, sometimes referred to as coproduction.

Their greater involvement over time is perhaps evidenced by a greater focus from local and regional authorities on infrastructure and initiatives to support cycling and active travel. We’ve seen measures like Low Traffic Neighbourhoods work best when people are involved in conversations about understanding the benefits as well as designs.’

Plowden also points to a number of areas that have appointed commissioners for cycling and other forms of active travel, citing the West Midlands, Sheffield, Greater Manchester and London as key examples. Like Active Travel England, this is about developing organisations focused entirely on these modes of transport, which staff and leadership actually use, rather than leaving such infrastructure to be managed by the same bodies tasked with routes prioritising cars and other motor vehicles. As a result, active travel networks are becoming more comprehensive, efficient and safer, although protecting cyclists from drivers is only one part of the story.

In the UK air pollution is a major public health concern. 97% of homes in the country are exposed to an

atmosphere in breach of at least one World Health Organisation air quality guideline, and, according to 2017 numbers from the Office for National Statistics, 21% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the country are traceable to road traffic. So how worried should councils and the public be about exhaust fumes when cycling on-road routes through cities and other high pollution areas?

‘One privilege of working at a university is you’ve got all these bright young things you should be teaching and inspiring, but you can also set them interesting research

stop and if there’s an old bus setting off the particle monitor can go from 2000 per cubic centimetre - which is already quite scary - to 250,000 in a second. Then we put monitors in rucksacks with sample tubes exposed to the atmosphere, and kit to measure breathing rate, tension, and heart rate.

Then we head out on bikes, because this way we get something close to an accurate reading of actual inhaled dose for cyclists.’

Tate’s eye-opening studies of 2.5mile rush-hour commutes around central Leeds makes a strong case not just for cycling, but quality cycling

projects. So, we’ve done a number of exposure studies [to determine the dangers of emissions for cyclists],’ says James Tate, Associate Professor at the University of Leeds’ Institute of Transport Studies. As he explains, participants used laser particle counting sensors capable of giving real time readings, and were assigned routes through the West Yorkshire city’s rapidly expanding cycle network classed as suburban, backroad, main road, or green, depending on the level of, or proximity to, road traffic.

‘First I get my students to go out with these handheld devices, and just scan the air. You walk past a bus

infrastructure. Using 2018’s results, where advanced stop lines for bikes were in place, meaning riders aren’t stuck behind idling vehicle exhausts and are first to move off once traffic lights change, journey times were 50% less than drivers and bus passengers, and particulate matter exposure was around half that of other road users.

‘Most emissions are produced when vehicles are accelerating in urban areas. So, as we’ve seen congestion return post-pandemic these cycling facilities are becoming much more important, from a safety perspective, and just to make cycling more attractive,’ he explains.

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The Big Interview

Professor Prashant Kumar, Founding Director of the Global Centre for Clean Air Research Air Quality News editor Chloe Coules speaks to Professor Prashant Kumar, Founding Director of the Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE) at the University of Surrey, about his career in air quality research.

Professor Prashant Kumar’s interest in air quality began while studying for his master's degree in Delhi, India.

‘As part of my dissertation, I picked up the topic of air quality, looking into the respirable suspended particulate matter in and around Delhi,’ he tells Air Quality News.

‘That gave me the motivation that this is a problem, but back then in 2003 when I was doing this work, there was not a lot of awareness about air pollution, and people were taking air quality for granted.’

As awareness of air quality has grown, so has Professor Kumar’s career. Now Associate Dean for the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences and Professor and Chair in Air Quality at the University of Surrey, he has over 210 articles in top-ranked journals and works with collaborators across four continents.

He also founded the Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), a world renowned, multi-disciplinary centre focused on improving indoor and outdoor air quality.

‘The idea was to understand the impact of air pollutants on life quality, developing internationally validated engineering solutions and underpinning regulatory strategies,’ explains Prashant.

In his time as Director, GCARE has secured over £8m in research funding, completed over 40 projects and produced over 300 journal articles in the air quality space.

Professor Kumar tells Air Quality News that his varied background in civil and environmental engineering has 32

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allowed him to understand the importance of taking multidisciplinary approaches to tackle air pollution.

‘The problem of air quality is not something that a person with one discipline could really solve.’

‘The problem of air quality is not something that a person with one discipline could really solve. For example, you might need to have an understanding of physics to understand how these particles are physically moving into the environment, you need to understand chemistry in terms of how the particles are interacting with each other, you need to understand the engineering side so that you can model them and bring some kind of mathematical background into it.

‘My background allows me to tackle this problem from a very multi-disciplinary perspective. I can think from a holistic point of view, rather than just focusing on one aspect.

This is where my research is a little bit distinctive from what a lot of people are doing.’

Professor Kumar’s team at GCARE is made up of researchers from a wide range of fields, including physics, chemistry, biochemistry and mathematics, as well as civil, chemical and mechanical engineers, and even people with a background in English language and social science to help communicate the research.

‘Air quality is an area for everyone who is interested in it;

The Big Interview

actively through different projects and different solutions that we have been creating. Having a very good network globally has allowed us to not only understand the problem in the UK, but also overseas, and work together with [other countries] to make a bigger impact.’

everyone has got something to contribute to it,’ says Prashant.

The work of GCARE falls into three strands: fundamental research, applied research and community-driven research. Their fundamental research attempts to improve understanding of air pollution and tackle grey areas in the research, and then the applied strand turns this understanding into solutions to air quality issues.

For example, GCARE worked with Global Action Plan and the engineering company Arup to improve air quality for children and teachers at five schools in London through the Lambeth Schools Air Quality Project that ran from 2020 to 2021.

The CArE-Cities project in 2019-2020 also established a multidisciplinary team for understanding emissions, penetrating low-cost pollution monitoring technology and exposure reduction strategies in selected official development assistance countries to develop a scientific framework for managing air pollution impacts on the health of people in these cities.

Professor Kumar has also recently launched the RECLAIM Network on 6 May, which aims to be a ‘one stop shop’ for towns and cities to find the information and support they need to install green and blue infrastructure in their communities.

Prashant explains that when moving towards net zero and looking to make cities more sustainable, green and blue infrastructure have an important part to play, in terms

It assessed commuters’ exposure through collecting primary air pollution data and evaluated different control scenarios to propose optimal transport emission control programmes to reduce the impact of air pollution on human health in Cairo and Sao Paulo, assessing the feasibility of similar studies in countries such as Malawi, Tanzania, Iraq, Bangladesh and Ethiopia.

He says that one of the highlights of his work at GCARE has been establishing the Guildford Living Lab, which works closely with the local community and produces free public resources that provide simple measures that individuals can take to improve air quality based on scientific evidence.

He also thinks a strength of their work has been building global connections to tackle air pollution: ‘As the name suggests, we have had over 40 countries involved very

of reducing air pollution, improving human health and increasing biodiversity.

However, he has noticed a lack of research explaining how to incorporate these natural solutions into climate and clean air strategies.

‘One of the issues I have seen through the research we have done into this area is there is a lack of clear guidance on where you want to put a tree, what trees you want to put in, and how you can benefit the most from these deployments.

‘In some cases, you might deploy infrastructure that could lead to the deterioration of the air quality of bring negative impacts to the area if you do not think more carefully about it. So, what we wanted to do is bring the councils as well as researchers and businesses together and try to come up with solutions that are simple, effective and deployable.’

‘Having a very good network globally has allowed us to not only understand the problem in the UK, but also oversees, and work together with other countries to make a bigger impact.’

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International

Will war in Ukraine lead to a quicker transition to renewable energy?

Air Quality News reporter Georgie Hughes explores the potential impacts of the Russia-Ukraine war on the use of fossil fuels, and whether it will help or hinder decarbonisation efforts.

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s fighting continues between Russia and Ukraine, nations across the globe are feeling the effects of the crisis. The world has placed tough sanctions on Russia and cut imports of oil and gas, causing prices to soar.

One of the top three crude producers and second largest natural gas producer in the world, Russia has tried to wield its vast energy supplies to influence other countries to side with the nation. Recently the Eastern European power announced it will no longer supply gas to Poland and Bulgaria since they refused to pay in roubles. In response to this threatening demeanour, alongside a disapproval of Putin’s actions, many countries have made clear intentions to end their reliance on Russian fuel altogether.

The EU has announced plans to be energy independent by 2030, while the UK will phase out imports of Russian oil by the end of the year.

As nations begin to establish energy independence and cut down use of foreign fossil fuels, it seems like a chance for governments to speed up their transition to renewable energy.

But will governments use this unique

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moment to make the change?

If this pivotal moment is used correctly, renewables could become the dominant source of power, as governments are forced to reevaluate how they produce energy.

The International Energy Agency recently released a report on how global oil demand could be reduced by 2.7 million barrels a day if emergency measures were introduced.

‘Reducing oil use must not remain a temporary measure. Sustained reductions are important not only to improve countries’ energy security but also to tackle climate change and reduce air pollution,’ wrote the organisation. ‘Governments have all the necessary tools at their disposal to put oil demand into decline in the coming years, and the report sets out the key ones to achieve this goal, including hastening the adoption of electric vehicles, raising fuel economy standards, boosting alternative fuel supplies, accelerating heat pump deployment, and producing and consuming plastic more sustainably.’

Many nations are already stepping in this direction, as new energy strategies are publicised. Britain’s

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Energy Security Strategy announced in early April laid out a proposal to accelerate the roll out of wind, solar, hydrogen and nuclear power in a bid to cut ties with Russia. There are also plans to ensure nuclear makes up 25% of electricity demand by 2050, reach 50gw of wind by 2030 and increase solar capacity.

Stuart Dossett, Policy Adviser at think tank and charity the Green Alliance, believes scaling up wind and solar is a ‘no regret option’ which achieves net zero targets and reduces reliance on international fossil fuel markets. ‘I think we'll be looking for the government to produce a clean power plan that sets out a roadmap for how it will deliver the decarbonised power system that its committed to and for meeting its targets for renewable energy expansion,’ he said. ‘To further speed up the deployment of renewables as well, the government should reform onshore planning restrictions for wind and solar and deliver a coordinated and integrated offshore grid for offshore wind.’

International

Governments should also focus more on increasing energy efficiency to tackle both energy security and net zero targets. Stew Horne, Head of Policy at the Energy Saving Trust, an independent organisation working on addressing the climate emergency, tells Air Quality News: ‘Improving the energy efficiency of the UK’s largely inefficient housing stock should be a higher priority.

A long-term home energy efficiency programme supported by a comprehensive national impartial service, providing tailored advice to households, would minimise soaring energy costs, reduce our reliance on a volatile fossil fuel market and cut carbon emissions – both at an individual and national level.’

However, despite a shift towards renewable energy there is still a risk nations will increase domestic production of oil and gas as they distance themselves from Russia. The UK has already announced plans for a new licensing round for oil and gas projects in the North Sea as part of the

Energy Security Strategy. It suggests governments are still relying on fossil fuels, despite a prime opportunity to leave them behind.

‘Use of oil and gas in the UK needs to halve by 2035 if we are to achieve our legally binding target of cutting harmful carbon emissions by 78%,’ added Mr Horne. ‘Investing in fossil fuels is a backwards step and will not secure a supply of affordable energy that we need to address the problems people are facing now. Instead, it will put the brakes on a transition to cleaner, cheaper energy and continue to tie us to prices set by the international market.’

The government has assured this new licensing round is still in line with its environmental ambitions.

Any new oil and gas projects that are launched will need to pass a climate compatibility checkpoint introduced last December. But, even so, it’s unlikely the country will see any immediate benefits, as it takes years for oil to be extracted. ‘It will be decades before the new oil and gas

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fields start producing so they won't improve the UK’s energy security or help to reduce consumer bills during the current cost of living crisis,’ said Mr Dossett. ‘Simultaneously, the electrification of home heating and cars in particular are going to decrease the demand for oil and gas in the UK.’ Despite this, some MPs are insistent we increase domestic production of oil and gas to ensure stability. For example, Sarah Atherton, MP for Wrexham, suggested the government forget net zero ambitions for now and prioritise building energy independence. If this rhetoric continues the swift switch to renewables which is hoped for may no longer be in sight.

It's currently unclear how the energy crisis will play out and only time will tell if governments will use this chance to take the leap into renewables. But as tensions between Ukraine and Russia aren’t ending anytime soon, nations may soon prioritise energy supply over the planet.

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Local Government

Liverpool and air quality Paul Farrell from Liverpool City Council explains the air quality challenges faced in the city and what progress has been made on tackling them

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iverpool is known throughout the world for its maritime and cultural heritage. However, it has to look to the future and to make Liverpool a city of choice, of destination, whether that be for visitors, inward investment or for its existing residents and businesses. As such it understands the importance of clean air and the positive contribution it will make to the city’s ability to grow in the future.

As a result the Council has embarked on a number of initiatives that will improve air quality across the city and the wider city region including the City Centre Connectivity scheme and City Mobility strategy, both of which are looking to make walking, cycling and the use of public transport a priority over cars. These initiatives are geared towards improving connections across the city to make it easier and safer to navigate. Furthermore, they require major highways infrastructure changes, which in themselves will help reduce congestion and improve air quality.

But before then, we need to understand where Liverpool has come from with regards to air quality and what is currently being done to improve air quality across the city.

In keeping with other Local Authorities in England and Wales, Liverpool City Council (LCC) has a legal duty to monitor air quality within its boundaries, and where air quality fails to meet the required limit values for any of a prescribed number of pollutants, it must take action to address any exceedances.

Pre 2005 Liverpool had two small air quality

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Management Area’s (AQMA’s) where it failed to meet the limit value for Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) of 40µg/m3 as an Annual Mean. However due to further exceedances/hotspots being discovered across the city in successive years between 2005 and 2007, the Council declared the whole of the city as an AQMA in 2008.

Once a city wide AQMA was declared, the Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP) related to the two small AQMA’s was updated to identify actions that could be taken to improve air quality and bring compliance. These actions were implemented with varying degrees of success. In yearly reviews of air quality across the city via the Review & Assessment process, actions within the AQAP were removed once completed, and new actions were added when introduced such as Government funding for Green Bus Technology for example.

Following on from the introduction of the city wide AQMA, Liverpool implemented a number of measures that have had a positive impact on air quality, but there still remained a number of exceedances across the city that resulted in Liverpool being legally mandated by Government in the third wave of Local Authorities in October 2018.

The legal mandate stated that Liverpool needed to produce a Clean Air Plan (CAP) that would identify how NO2 levels could be reduced in the shortest possible time so that the whole of the city would be compliant.

In support of the production of a CAP the Council

Local Government

place before a decision to implement a charging zone would be reached.

In addition to the CAP, the Council is active in monitoring air quality across the city, with Passive Diffusion Tubes for monitoring NO2 concentrations deployed at over 140 locations.

Furthermore, the Council installed 5 automatic monitoring stations for measuring NO2 in 2020. The decision to install these was taken following the set-up of a Task Group in 2017 by the Mayor of Liverpool, who wanted to understand the scale of air quality issues across the city so that these could be addressed. The initial work of the Task Group was however superseded by the Governments decision to mandate the city in October 2018.

There is also NO2 and Particulate Matter monitoring undertaken as part of the international Urban Green Up project that Liverpool has been part of during the past 4 years. This monitoring links in with the other air quality monitoring undertaken in the city to provide a better understanding of air quality across the city.

The Council has also made progress in communicating with residents and businesses with regards to air quality via the Let’s Clear the Air Liverpool website. The website hosts a wealth of information about air quality in Liverpool including details about the Liverpool Clean Air Plan, live air quality data feeds, Council led projects being undertaken to improve air quality and initiatives funded through the governments air quality grant fund such as the schools project that has recently been started with Imperial College London.

has undertaken extensive work to understand the scale of the problem across the city through Transport and air quality modelling. This work has identified several road length exceedances that require some form of intervention to achieve compliance. A Clean Air Zone (CAZ) as a benchmark has had to be modelled, in addition the Council has looked at non-CAZ options where a CAZ is either considered inappropriate or ineffective, and where non-CAZ options could make the exceedances across the city become compliant as quickly as with a CAZ, if not quicker.

Apart from one road length, it is forecast that Liverpool City Centre will become compliant by 2024/25 subject to the Council being able to introduce measures that have been identified through the modelling. However, it is expected that the one remaining exceedance to the north of the city may need several smaller interventions over an extended period of time for it to become compliant, and at present compliance at this location will be post 2025.

There is currently sensitivity testing on the various modelling outputs being undertaken and consultation with various key stakeholders such as the Taxi Trade, SME’S, etc. has being started to understand the impact on them if certain measures were introduced, especially around their response to a charging CAZ. A decision to introduce a charging CAZ seems unlikely from current modelling, but in the event that one was to be introduced, it would still need Council Member approval, and a statutory consultation with residents and businesses across the city will need to take

In summary, with regards to improving air quality, Liverpool has made significant progress since the declaration of a city wide AQMA in 2008, but it understands it is far from complete, especially with regards to WHO proposals to reduce all pollutant limit values principally in relation to Particulate Matter. The increased public and political awareness of poor air quality and its negative impact on health and wellbeing means that the work to improve air quality in Liverpool will continue at pace for the foreseeable future.

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Legal

Air pollution litigation and the problem of causation Dan Scott and Harry Little from Clyde & Co explore the difficulties of air quality litigation and how changes to causation rules could result in more successful claims.

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ir pollution is increasingly a source of liability risk.

As in the climate change space, NGOs are actively seeking out strategic litigation opportunities and identifying novel means of bringing claims against both public and private bodies. Litigation is brought with a dual purpose: to hold polluters to account and influence their behaviours in future.

Presently, air quality litigation is focused on public bodies, insisting that they do more to regulate and enforce pollution reduction measures.

In the coming years we expect to see an increasing number of claims brought against private bodies, including primary polluters and the manufacturers of allegedly polluting products. Such claims will test the boundaries of environmental law.

One question is whether polluting conduct can be characterised as a breach of legal duty. The answer to this question may seem obvious, but the main activities causing air pollution -

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• Dan Scott Dan.Scott@clydeco.com

• Harry Little Harry.Little@clydeco.com

driving cars and heating homes - are undertaken by all of us as a core part of our daily lives. A similar point applies to the manufacturer of products which cause air pollution. If a car or domestic boiler complies with current standards, can it amount to a breach of duty to place it on the market?

There are also difficulties of proof and causation. There is a factual aspect: how to prove and quantify the impact of a single defendant’s activities among many other causes of

local air pollution. Polluting gases may travel many miles and persist in the local atmosphere for varying periods of time. The effect is not always linear: human activity, natural phenomena and climatic conditions may contribute to spikes in local pollution.

There is also a legal aspect. A prospective claimant will need to prove the existence of a substantial link between the defendant’s conduct and injury, and show that the injury is not too remote a consequence of the

airqualitynews.com

Legal

account. The defendant will argue that it cannot be held liable when there were so many other contributing causes.

Both positions have merit. There is something counter intuitive about a defendant escaping liability simply because other people were engaged in the same harmful behaviour. It would, however, be equally counter intuitive to allocate 100% liability to a company which only contributed 50% of local emissions.

Material Contribution

defendant’s wrongdoing.

If one considers a claim being made by residents of a town for bodily injuries they allege are caused by emissions from a local factory, the difficulty in establishing causation becomes immediately apparent. In such a scenario, one must consider: • pollutants emitted from the factory; • pollutants travelling in the air from outside the relevant locality; • pollutants from stationary emitters, including households, businesses, and other factories; • pollutants from mobile or transient emitters such cars, trains, aircraft; and • the length of time over which the pollutants have caused or contributed to the injury.

Assume, for example, that the factory contributed 50% of the local emissions, should that be sufficient to satisfy the requirements of causation?

The claimants will say that the factory was the most substantial contributor to air pollution and should be held to

In England and Wales the courts have shown a willingness to depart from strict causation analysis where there is a pressing public policy consideration. In certain circumstances, the courts have used the test of ‘material contribution’ wherein a claimant need show only that the defendant’s actions materially contributed to the injury.

In the well known case of Fairchild v Glenhaven, the House of Lords considered a difficult case involving mesothelioma. The claimants had been exposed to asbestos throughout their working lives and while working for different employers. As they could not prove during which period of employment the harm occurred, the employers argued that none of them could be held to account. The Court held that, exceptionally, the need for common sense should prevail over the strict requirements of causation, and therefore the employees could recover compensation from any employer who had materially contributed to the risk of harm.

According to the Fairchild approach, the claimant must show that the defendant’s conduct was at least capable of causing or aggravating the damage, and that it did in fact materially increase the risk of that damage.

It is important to stress that the Fairchild approach has not yet been adopted outside the narrow context of employers’ liability claims. Extending it to environmental cases would be a novel and unprecedented development.

The approach would not necessarily lead to a just outcome. Building on the above example, consider what would happen if the residents of the

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town brought their claim against a group of car manufacturers due to there being substantial emissions emanating from the motorway running through the town. Whilst the individual manufacturer’s contribution to the local emissions may well have materially contributed to the residents’ injuries, it does not seem just that a single manufacturer whose products only contributed to a small % of local emissions could be held liable for the totality of the injury.

Alternative Theories There are other theories of causation which claimants might invoke. Each of those theories would have its own issues in the context of air pollution, but may be a more or less attractive alternative to traditional rules. In the FCA Business Interruption Test Case, the Supreme Court deviated from traditional causation rules, finding that each and every occurrence of Covid-19 was a separate but equally effective cause of the Covid-19 regulations imposed by the British government.

In the US, the court have developed a ‘market share’ theory of causation following the landmark product liability case of Sindell v Abbott Laboratories. There, a claimant had been injured by a drug but could not establish which company had manufactured the drug. The California Supreme Court found each manufacturer of the drug liable for a percentage of the plaintiff’s damages based on its market share of the drug production.

Conclusion On the application of current rules, civil claims for harm arising from poor air quality are destined to fail.

It is almost impossible to prove that any single emitter was the cause of harm. Nevertheless, the common law is not written in stone, and changes to the way in which courts apply causation rules could have a substantial effect on the outcome of claims. In the coming years we expect to see some new and challenging cases in this important field. https://www.clydeco.com/en 39

Marketplace Enviro Technology Services

AS Modelling & Data Ltd

GRAMM SmogStop

RHT Industries Limited

Founded in 1983 and now active in over 67 countries with a multimillion pound turnover, ET has evolved over 37 years to become a global provider of air quality and emissions monitoring systems and servicing. The company sell and lease equipment, systems and services covering the monitoring of ambient air quality (AQM), continuous emissions (CEM) and indoor air quality.

ET also supplies cutting-edge analytical equipment for scientific, process and research monitoring including the monitoring of greenhouse and toxic gases.

The company operates out of a custom-designed 1700m2 factory featuring fully air-conditioned calibration and repair laboratories, in-house system manufacturing and dedicated testing and training facilities.

AS Modelling & Data provides dispersion and deposition modelling using the latest version of ADMS for a wide range of clients including farms, the waste water industry, waste management, general manufacturing and Local Authorities. Our team can provide the expertise, modelling, data and reports for odour, ammonia and air quality assessments including detailed modelling of emissions from ammonia scrubbers and innovative ventilation systems.

AS Modelling & Data can also provide meteorological station data and site-specific Numerical Weather Prediction data for any site location in the world, which can be converted for use within ADMS. We can provide data for meteorological parameters on request and data can be provided quickly at affordable prices. stevesmith@asmodata.co.uk

GRAMM is the UK leading specialist in the design, supply & installation of environmental acoustic barriers. We have constructed literally 1,000’s of Km’s of acoustic barriers of all types of materials throughout the UK and Europe.

GRAMM SmogStop Barrier reduces air and noise pollution levels in surrounding neighbourhoods, and takes a two-pronged approach to reducing air pollution from major roads, highways and railways.

The patented aerodynamic design reduces pollution levels by enhancing dispersion. At the same time, a proprietary coating on the barrier actually breaks down the NOx and VOCs that produce smog, transforming them into harmless by-products

We are an indoor environment air treatment manufacturer that brings to market an innovative, sustainable and an environmentally friendly technology.

Developed in cooperation with the world-renowned Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, our NCCO (Nano Confined Catalytic Oxidation) air treatment system is entirely safe and has one of the longest filter lives in our industry.

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CarTakeBack

Environmental Monitoring Arcola Energy

CarTakeBack is the UK’s largest network of scrap car recycling centres with over 300 sites across the UK. CarTakeBack provide a scrap vehicle recycling service to the public and businesses including vehicle manufacturers, dealerships, police forces, auction houses as well as local authorities and government bodies.

CarTakeBack recycle vehicles to the highest standard and have a successful history of handling and supporting vehicle scrappage schemes - including government and local authority schemes as well as vehicle manufacturer and dealership lead schemes.

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Data Monitoring Systems Ltd are a complete data solutions provider From your single analyser, right through to your complete network, our Data Gateway has the ability to connect to 20 analysers simultaneously. Major analysers, for example, Thermo, Palas, Ecotech, Vaisala, and more may be connected to our Data Gateways with automatic calibrations also being carried out.

Data ratification, and reports may be carried using our Reports package.

Coming soon: ï I ndoor Air Monitoring system measuring: • TVOC, • Particles • CO2 • Temperature • Humidity with display, mobile phone and WiFi connectivity.

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ïW eb portal for displaying your data. ï Mobile phone application.

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Em-Monitors (Environmental Monitoring) is a specialist provider and manufacturer of a range of environmental monitoring equipment. We recognise the need to minimise cost by providing accurate and meaningful data remotely to any location in the world.

Our air monitoring systems cover indicative indoor and air quality systems as well as reference system required to report to national standards. Environmental Monitoring also provide workplace monitoring equipment and training, so that you can produce professional reports with confidence.

Environmental Monitoring covers all your environmental monitoring requirements.

T: 01539 727 878 www.airquality-monitoring.co.uk em-monitors.co.uk

Marketplace Bosch Air Quality Solutions

Alphasense supplies high-quality gas and particulate sensors to many of the world’s leading industrial OEMs in the air quality, industrial and gas safety industries.

With over 25 years’ experience in the design and manufacture of high-accuracy sensors, the Alphasense brand is synonymous with quality and innovation, particularly in the fields of gas detection, industrial gas analysis and environmental monitoring

T: +44 (0) 1376 556700 https://www.alphasense.com/

Compelled by worsening levels of air pollution in the UK, Evotech launched its specialist air quality division to help customers create safer working environments and is currently supporting clients to improve confidence in returning to the workplace during and after the pandemic.

We help UK businesses and organisations create healthier and safer working environments by monitoring and transforming their indoor air quality.

T: 0333 207 4245 www.evotechairquality.co.uk/

AQMesh is the proven small sensor outdoor air quality monitor manufactured in the UK by Environmental Instruments Ltd and supported worldwide through a global network of distributors. It has been designed to offer a robust and easy-to-use air quality monitoring system that can deliver localised real-time readings, improving the accuracy and scope of gathering air quality data in order to support initiatives to reduce air pollution and its risk to human health.

The Bosch air quality portfolio is focused on providing highly precise data with the expertise to improve the air quality around us.

Offering a tool to local authorities to understand source emissions and model the implications on air quality. Highly beneficial for current advanced traffic management including assessing the effect on air quality for planned infrastructure projects.

We measure pollutants using our Certified Air Quality Monitoring Box (AQMB) measuring Ambient Gases and Indicative PM (Optical Particle Counter) and track these pollutants independently or in combination with our Air Quality Software solutions; Environmentally Sensitive Traffic Management (ESTM) and Air Quality Dispersion Model (AQDM).

E: Ian.Larbey@uk.bosch.com https://www.bosch-mobilitysolutions.com/en/solutions/airquality-solutions/air-qualitysolutions/

T: +44 (0)1789 777703 www.aqmesh.com

At Marston Holdings we understand the current challenges our local authority clients are facing whether they be social, economic or environmental.

We work collaboratively with our 500+ clients in the UK and EU to develop, refine and execute a wide range of end to end transport and enforcement solutions to meet their local and combined air quality and environmental targets and objectives.

We provide complete design, build and enforce services for clean air zones and low emission zones and are working with many cities and regions on their bespoke solutions.

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SUEZ Smart & Environmental Solutions’ (SES) Air & Climate Division recognises the rising pressures to address poor air quality to protect public health and preserve the natural environment. SUEZ SES is committed to achieving and improving air quality levels to as low as reasonably practicable.

The Air & Climate Division has developed a global approach for the management of air quality and has been offering solutions for reducing atmospheric pollution and nuisance odours for more than 20 years. The Division is a leader when it comes to innovation. Excellent progress has been made developing and effectively integrating services and solutions across a broad range of sectors that capture both private and public sector clients, with improved air quality levels observed.

T: 0 7785 695 155 www.suez.com/en/ouroffering/local-authorities/ taking-action-for-climate-andair-quality-in-cities

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EarthSense is a leading air quality specialist, providing expert services in air pollution monitoring, modelling and data provision.

EarthSense deliver innovative solutions, enabling the world to visualise and manage its air quality issues with the mantra: Measure.

Model. Act. Offering a complete data solution to air pollution from inception to implementation, EarthSense’s modelling and monitoring products highlight a reputation for technical excellence in air quality services in the UK and abroad.

Products include the Zephyr air quality monitor and versatile modelling programme MappAir, carefully validated against the government standard Automatic Urban and Rural Network (AURN) for gaseous pollutants including Nitrogen Dioxide, Ozone and Particulate Matter.

T: 0116 296 7460 www.earthsense.co.uk

Our cities are getting bigger and more complex. We want to make mobility safer, more efficient, and more sustainable with forward-looking infrastructure and transport solutions. Yunex Traffic develops innovative mobility ecosystems and services for the smart city.

This combines freedom of movement with limited space; autonomy with safety; climate targets with value creation; quality of life with digital progress.

T: 01202 782000 Uniting what’s next in traffic.

www.yunextraffic.com/global/ en/

We are connecting the dots of a new mobility revolution that is transforming our towns and cities.

operators to make their road networks and fleets intelligent, enhance road safety and improve air quality.

With the broadest end-to-end portfolio of intelligent traffic management solutions, we work with cities, highway authorities and mobility

It’s time to make the world a better place. We are ready. Are you?

www.yunextraffic.com/uk

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airqualitynews.com

Complete air quality service using award-winning technology to drive behavioural change in communities.

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Zephyr® near real-time indicative monitoring

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Global MappAir® modelling suite complaint with EU Directive 50 Advanced modelling using CFD Flexible data access On-going sensor performance monitoring Cartridge calibrations Service, maintenance & fieldwork

www.earthsense.co.uk Come and talk to us, we’re exhibiting!

Air Quality News Manchester Conference | 25th May 2022

Combining the very best for a brighter, cleaner future!

Whatever your air quality or transport decarbonisation plans, Marston Holdings can help at every step with market leading solutions incorporating: Hyperlocal AQ data monitoring and visualisation Design and planning of AQ interventions Technology solutions to support AQ schemes On street and digital enforcement services We provide unrivalled services for local authorities to achieve long-term air quality improvements.

Speak to a member of the team to find out more.

www.marstonholdings.co.uk/airquality airquality@marstonholdings.co.uk