Government accused of ‘shirking its responsibility’ on air pollution

New support for local authorities to deal with air pollution has been called "pitiful" by a group of environmental lawyers.

ClientEarth accused the Government of “shirking its responsibility” and passing the buck to local councils, even though the Government has launched £260m of funding to help improve air quality in some of the country’s worst polluted areas, along with a response to a consultation on its air quality plan.

Allocated to assist local authorities in their transition to lower air pollution, the funding came with recommendations local authorities could consider to use the money effectively.

Proposed measures included new park and ride services, freight consolidation centres and concessionary travel schemes.

“We have been clear that local leaders are best placed to develop innovative plans that rapidly meet the needs of their communities,” said Environment Minister Therese Coffey.

However, the move was dismissed as insufficient by ClientEarth, which recently won a court case against the Government over its failure to deal with illegal levels of harmful nitrogen dioxide.

“This is a pitiful response from the Government, which is yet again shirking its responsibility to clean up our country’s harmful and illegal air pollution,” said Simon Alcock, head of UK public affairs at ClientEarth.

“The proposal outlined today is of no value to anybody. Michael Gove has passed the buck yet again to local councils to see if they can do his work for him.”

The environmental lawyers said the response was insufficient as it provided no firm recommendations and essentially amounted to an “inventory of possible measures”.

In addition, they criticised the lack of additional funding to account for the increase in the number of councils in need of air quality improvements.

“No extra money has been allocated to the fund, despite the fact that the number of councils expected to come up with air quality plans has more than doubled following ClientEarth’s recent victory in the High Court,” said Mr Alcock.

“And the car industry, which helped get us into this mess, is still not paying a single penny to help get us out of it.”

Measures including a proposed national network of clean air zones, and help for people to switch to cleaner forms of transport, such as scrappage scheme for high-polluting cars, were being overlooked, the campaigners claimed.

In the report summarising its clean air fund, the Government stated it was “not proposing to take forward a national scrappage scheme at this time”.

A diesel car scrappage scheme has been mooted in the past and a poll commissioned by ClientEarth revealed that the majority of the British public would support such a scheme.

“It is remarkable that Michael Gove has no interest in helping British people switch from dirty diesel vehicles to cleaner forms of transport,” said Mr Alcock.

“People are breathing dirty air across our country and paying the price with their health – but cleaning it up is not rocket science.”

Greenpeace UK clean air campaigner Morten Thaysen agreed the lack of a scrappage scheme was significant.

“The Government has just performed a tire-burning U-turn on the national scrappage scheme,” he said. “This measure would have been a good opportunity to take polluting cars off our roads while helping drivers who bought dirty diesels on a false prospectus. Instead, ministers are once again passing the buck to local authorities.”

In response to ClientEarth's comments, Ms Coffey said: “Improving air quality is about more than just tackling emissions from transport, so later this year we will publish a comprehensive Clean Air Strategy."

“This will set out how we will address all forms of air pollution, delivering cleaner air for the whole country.”