Roads for all and not just the car!
From "Draft Borough Plan Priorities"
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Air pollution can negatively affect human health, with long-term accumulated exposure (over years to decades) considered to cause the greatest harm. Traffic on our streets is one of the greatest sources of air pollution, pumping noxious fumes into the air we breathe and our homes.
During the successive lockdowns, the take up of cycling and walking amongst children, the young and old increased, as out streets felt safer because they were not dominated by traffic. And the air we breathed was cleaner.
Air pollution is responsible for tens of thousands of early deaths in London and across England. In fact, air related deaths far outweigh the numbers of those killed on England’s roads, and even the numbers of deaths we saw reported in the early days of the Covid 19 pandemic.
Yet we continue to ignore air pollution - one of the biggest and established silent deadly killers in our midst.
As with Covid 19, those adversely impacted the most by air pollution tend to be the poorest ranks of society.
Brent continues to be in the top five of poorest inner London boroughs.
During the first lockdown, Brent had the worst death rate of any local authority in England and Wales per 100,000 population, with 490 deaths to the end of July 2020, including 36 deaths alone in one of its most deprived neighbourhoods, Church End.
Child Poverty rates in Brent - the percentage of children living in poverty (after housing costs) was 40% in 2019/204 (the 12th highest in London). The cost of air pollution on children is not factored into this percentage.
Children suffer the most from air pollution – asthma, stunted lung growth and other respiratory problems.
Doing little to address air pollution in Brent will have huge health, financial, economic, social and environmental cost for tomorrow’s future – today’s children.
Starting with providing healthier environments – less traffic dominated streets – must be the Council’s priority, its prerogative going forward. And this is not an idea; rather a fact that must be actioned.