Air Quality
News about aviation and air quality
Gatwick MPs call on Transport Secretary: “Gatwick Airport must end misleading air quality claims”
Gatwick is misleading local residents about the environmental impact of their plans to build a 2nd runway, a group of South East MPs warned today. The MPs expressed their concerns about air quality claims and night flights in a letter to the Transport Secretary,Patrick McLoughlin. The Gatwick Coordination Group (GCG) - the MPs in areas close to and affected by Gatwick - is asking Mr Mcloughlin to stop Gatwick from running advertising campaigns which contradict expert environmental evidence, and mislead their constituents. Gatwick has repeatedly claimed the area around the airport “has never and will never breach legal air quality limits” and that it is the “greener” option for expansion. But the MPs as well as councillors and local representatives say the airport's claims ignore significant evidence in the Airports Commission's report. The GCG are demanding Gatwick makes clear the real impact of a 2nd runway on the local environment to nearby residents. The GCG also object to the DfT "drawing up plans for night flights at an expanded Gatwick, which would subject over 60,000 people in the Gatwick area to over 20 hours of continuous aircraft noise. It is incredible to think that the DfT is contemplating this when the Airports Commission made a stronger case for Heathrow which included a clear and viable recommendation for a ban on night flights”.
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Local people in Chiswick get more crowd-funded air pollution monitors
Air pollution in London is a growing problem, and people are justifiably very concerned about its health impacts. The local campaign group in Chiswick, CHATR, has been involved with moves to get more air pollution monitors installed. With the help of Chiswick Brentford and Isleworth neighbours, the Hounslow Green Party has installed the 3rd round of air pollution monitors targeting the A4/M4 corridor. This follows from monitoring results in summer 2015 that showed pollutants over EU limits. The proposed development schemes presented for the "Golden Mile" - that extends from Chiswick to Osterley- and also a 3rd runway, are expected to have significant adverse effects on already bad quality air. Scientific studies are showing increasing ill health, particularly caused by NO2 and particulates. This ill health is expensive not only in human terms, but in the costs to the NHS and to society. Chiswick would be directly below the arrivals flight path for a 3rd Heathrow runway, so it could suffer from far higher pollution from so many aircraft - emitting NO2 - only perhaps 2,000 feet overhead. The Green Party stresses how changes to transport are urgently needed. The air pollution monitors has been sourced from Mapping for Change, a citizen’s science project.
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ClientEarth gives government final legal warning – to act on air pollution within 10 days
Environmental law organisation, ClientEarth, has sent a final legal warning to the UK government which gives the Environment Secretary, Liz Truss, 10 days to act on air pollution or face action in the High Court. ClientEarth won a Supreme Court judgement on air pollution against the government in April 2015. They have now issued the legal letter because Defra's plans to tackle illegal levels of pollution fall woefully short of what was ordered by the Court. The government's current plans, which it was ordered to produce by the Supreme Court after losing to ClientEarth last year, do not envisage the UK to have legal levels of air pollution until 2025 - because of the delay in getting older more polluting vehicles off the roads altogether. ClientEarth has asked the government to produce new plans with a list of measures that will bring air pollution within legal limits in the shortest time possible and put these plans out to public consultation. If ClientEarth does not receive a satisfactory reply within 10 days, it will launch legal proceedings in the High Court. It will ask the High Court to compel ministers to submit improved plans. NO2 from diesel vehicles is creating much of the problem - a key issue for airport expansion, which generates high levels due to aircraft and road vehicles.
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Figures reveal that passenger journeys to and from Heathrow are increasingly been made by road
New statistics from the DfT reveal that passenger journeys to and from Heathrow airport are increasingly been made by road. The figures, issued in response to a FoI request made by the Teddington Action Group (TAG), show that passenger journeys by car and taxis rose by 2,000,000 in 2014 (the last year for which figures are available). In 2013, the aggregate number of private car and taxi/minicab journeys was 25 million. In 2014 they had risen to 27 million (an increase of nearly 10%). TAG says this trend would appear to call into question the assertion made by John Holland Kaye (CEO of Heathrow) on 4th November 2015 to Parliament's EAC, that there has been no increase in polluting vehicular journeys in the vicinity of the airport. He had been asked how Heathrow could meet Air Quality targets with a 3rd runway (when an increase of up to 54% in passenger journeys to and from the airport might be anticipated). Heathrow has a show-stopper problem for its runway plans, from air pollution. It needs to get its passengers and its staff to get to (and from) the airport by rail. In 2014, 59% of passengers arrived by car, taxi or minicab. Another 13% arrived by bus or coach. 28% arrived by rail or by Tube. Getting passengers out of their cars will be hard. The air pollution from Heathrow's air freight is already a problem, let alone if volume was doubled.
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Study by Imperial College indicates health impacts of particulate air pollution last decades after exposure
The longest-running study so far - by Imperial College - has analysed long-term mortality risks of Britons exposed to historic particulate pollution. It has found that health impacts from particulate air pollution persist for years. The study did not look at NOx. The analysis of 368,000 British people over 38 years showed that those living in the most polluted places have a higher risk of dying than those in areas with the least air pollution. The deaths were from respiratory problems, like pneumonia, emphysema and bronchitis, and also from cardiovascular problems, like heart attacks. The leader of the study, Dr Anna Hansell, said there was an association between exposure to air pollution in 1971 with mortality in 2002-09. However, more recent exposures to polluted air are more harmful, with more impact from exposure to polluted air in 2001 on health in 2002 -09. "There is an imperative that, because the effects are so long-lasting, we really ought to act on it. We have to think about what we are doing to the long-term health of the population.” There are 29,000 premature deaths per year in the UK - or 5% of all deaths - blamed on air pollution. The impact of particulate air pollution on children, whose lungs can be stunted for life, has been of particular concern to experts.
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DEFRA produces plan to improve air quality – Client Earth regards it as inadequate
A ruling by the Supreme Court in April 2015 required the government to produce a comprehensive plan to meet air pollution limits by December. The government has now produced this. The intention is that it has to include low emission zones, congestion charging and other economic incentives. It is thought that due to the failure to meet European limits of harmful NOx gases, which are mostly caused by diesel traffic, there are up to 9,500 premature deaths each year in London alone. Under the government's plan, "Clean Air Zones" will be introduced - by 2020 - in areas of Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton where pollution is most serious. However, though vehicles like old buses, taxis, coaches and lorries have to pay a charge to enter these zones - private passenger cars will not be charged. Also newer vehicles that meet the latest emission standards will not need to pay. Client Earth, the lawyers who brought the legal case against the UK government, for breaching the EU's Air Quality Directive, said the plan falls far short of the action necessary to comply with the Supreme Court ruling, and they will make a legal challenge to force the government to take faster action to achieve legal pollution limits. "As soon as possible," or by 2020, is not soon enough.
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Environment MEPs rebuff member states on plans to weaken testing of diesel vehicle emissions
On 28th October, the European Commission (EC) came to an agreement on weakening the emissions testing standards for diesel vehicles. This has been done in order to protect the European car industry, but put at risk the health of European citizens. Instead of tougher tests of how much NO2 vehicles actually produce in real world driving, the Commission proposed that "real-world" driving emissions (RDE) tests should become operational starting next year, but would only take full effect after a two-year phase-in for new vehicles from 2017. The limit is set to sink again in 2019. On 14th December the European Parliament's Environment Committee voted to reject the EC proposal, and member states. A resolution drafted by the environment committee MEPs to object to the proposal was passed with 40 votes in favour, 9 objections and 13 abstentions. Following yesterday's vote, Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout (Greens), spokesperson of the Parliament's Environment Committee, called the outcome an “important step towards overturning the outrageous decision by EU governments. ...This test, as it stands, would essentially overwrite EU limits on pollutants from cars." The European Parliament will vote on the resolution in the week of 18-21 January. Environment ministers will discuss the October agreement on diesel emissions on 16th December.
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The conditions recommended by the EAC apply at Gatwick, as well as at Heathrow
The Environmental Audit Committee proposed a series of environmental conditions (noise, CO2 and air pollution) that the government should impose on a 3rd runway at Heathrow. They also said Heathrow should pay for necessary additional surface access infrastructure. GACC has pointed out that very similar conditions would have to apply for a 2nd Gatwick runway. On Noise, the condition that Heathrow should be less noisy with three runways than with two would absolutely rule out a new Gatwick runway, as it would affect three times as many people as it would with one runway. There would also need to be a ban on night flights. The carbon emissions over future decades from flights using a 2nd Gatwick runway would be very similar to those from a 3rd Heathrow runway, so the same condition would apply. ie. that "the CCC’s advice on aviation in relation to the 5th carbon budget, introducing an effective policy framework to bring aviation emissions to 2005 levels by 2050 no later than autumn 2016….” On air pollution, although a new Gatwick runway might not breach EU limits it would adversely affect more houses than one at Heathrow. And on paying for surface transport, the airport should pay for all necessary transport upgrades, assessed when the airport is two- thirds full, not merely when it is just one-third full.
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Environmental Audit Committee says Government must ensure legal air pollution limits can be met and maintained
The Environmental Audit Committee report on a Heathrow runway, says in relation to air pollution: "Before the Government makes its decision, it should make its own assessment of the likely costs of preventing an adverse impact on health from expansion at Heathrow and publish it." Also that the government should not consider a new runway merely if air quality could be worse elsewhere in London than in the Heathrow area. The government will need to demonstrate that legal air pollution limits can be met and maintained "even when the expanded airport is operating at full capacity. Heathrow’s existing air quality strategy should also be revised to meet the new targets. Failing this, Heathrow should not be allowed to expand." As for not using the new runway if air quality is too poor: "The Government should not approve expansion at Heathrow until it has developed a robust framework for delivery and accountability. This should have binding, real-world milestones and balance the need for investor certainty with assurances that a successor Government cannot set the conditions aside if they become inconvenient." In distinguishing pollution from the airport, or from other sources: "The Government must establish clearly delineated responsibilities for meeting air quality limits before deciding to go ahead with the scheme" to avoid future legal and commercial risks.
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Environmental Audit Committee says government should not permit Heathrow runway without strict conditions
The EAC report's conclusions say: "The Government should not approve Heathrow expansion until Heathrow Ltd. can demonstrate that it accepts and will comply with the Airports Commission conditions, including a night flight ban, that it is committed to covering the costs of surface transport improvements; that it is possible to reconcile Heathrow expansion with legal air pollution limits, and that an expanded Heathrow would be less noisy than a two runway Heathrow. In each case - climate change, air quality and noise - it needs to set out concrete proposals for mitigation alongside clear responsibilities and milestones against which performance can be measured. It should report regularly to Parliament, through this Committee and others, on progress. The Government should not avoid or defer these issues. To do so would increase the risks of the project: delay through legal challenge, unquantifiable costs resulting from unclear responsibilities, economic risks through constraint of other sectors to meet increased aviation emissions and longterm costs to public health from the impact of air pollution and noise."