Green MEP Keith Taylor has slammed the 'abject failure' of UK transport planning following the publication of a damning air pollution report by academics at the Bristol-based University of the West of England.
Taylor, who sits on the European Parliament’s Environment and Public Health committee, said:
“This report exposes a ghastly truth; a public health crisis that claims the lives of 50,000 British citizens every year has been systematically ignored by successive governments.”
“The study reveals the abject failure of UK transport planning; expansion at all costs is failing the British people and the planet. The lack of environmental consideration and continued refusal to invest in a sustainable transport programme continues to cost thousands of lives annually. No one is pretending that solving this crisis will be easy, but today’s report clearly demonstrates the British government hasn’t even been trying.”
“It is a national disgrace that the quality of the air we all breathe has improved so little in the last two decades. The only positive action we have seen has been driven entirely by EU laws. EU air pollution limits are preventing 80,000 deaths every year across Europe. Limits our Conservative government continues to flout.”
“Air pollution deaths have reached epidemic levels. I’m urging Theresa May to treat our poor air quality as the public health priority it needs to be. Currently, air pollution racks up an annual public health bill of £20bn. For the health and prosperity of the British people, air pollution can no longer be ignored. The government needs to maintain, abide by and strengthen EU safeguards while reexamining its wrong-headed approach to transport planning.”