Engine Off Every Stop springtime campaign

Tues 23 February 2021 Hounslow Council invited us to a webinar hosted by campaign group Idling Action London who are helping to raise awareness of unnecessary idling of vehicles with their Engine Off Every Stop campaign which runs from 22 February til 23 March this year – look out for our adverts on billboards across London, on radio and online. The Idling Action Project has been running since 2016. Now in its fourth phase it is jointly led by the City of London Corporation and the London Borough of Camden. The campaign is funded by the Mayor’s Air Quality Fund.

This short video which demonstrates how much pollution is created by a car idling for just one minute:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMDFyB5XXJQ&feature=emb_logo

The campaigns encourages drivers to switch off when pulled over as this is the easiest way to protect public health and make an immediate improvement to local air quality. They believe that if drivers were aware of the pollution created by idling and the dangers of that pollution, they would switch off.

All 31 London Boroughs are taking part in this initiative and during the webinar there were presentations from Camden, Lambeth and Newham Boroughs, which have tackled the issue of idling with enforcement officers and raising awareness particularly within schools, as this pollution has been shown particularly to affect the lungs of children and the elderly.

There is a whole range of tools, activity packs and posters on their website for Schools, Businesses and other organisations to download for free and get involved in raising awareness of this issue.

Local printers OctInk kindly printed some No Idling car stickers for us last year and we still have some left to give away for free – if you’d like one please email airqualitybrentford@hotmail.com

Hounslow Clean Air and Climate Emergency Reference Group

Tuesday 7 July 2020 The second meeting of this group was held online via Microsoft Teams. Having consulted with the community and schools this Spring, Hounslow Council are taking their Climate Emergency Plan to Cabinet next week to be approved. They are starting to implement projects and will give annual updates on their progress.

LSX event at City Hall

10 September 2019 We attended this event at City Hall along with other organisations and community groups concerned about air quality. It was noted that we’re now 6 months in to the first phase of the ULEZ and it will be expanded in October 2021.

Heathrow consultation, our response

11 September 2019

Dear Sir/Madam

As a group which is concerned about air pollution and the poor quality of our air locally in Brentford we object to the proposal to expand Heathrow Airport by adding a 3rd runway. The main impact of increasing the current flights by 700 more planes a day will negatively affect over 650,000 people in West London with a vast increase in greenhouse gas emissions and significant ‘noise change’. In addition, the increased quantity of surface traffic as a result of a further runway would significantly increase traffic running through Brentford which, being a major arterial route for London is already highly congested with traffic running through residential areas.

A Climate Change Emergency has been declared in the UK and worldwide, there is a necessity to decrease the use of airport transport rather than an increase in levels. We need to decrease our use of fossil fuel with the detrimental impact its emissions have on human health, both locally in terms of Nitrogen Dioxide and Particulates and on a wider level in terms of Carbon Dioxide which is affecting global climate change.

Airplanes emit particles and gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, lead, and black carbon, and the proposed escalation in air plane usage in the skies over West London is highly unacceptable.

DEFRA refer to research showing that both particulates and nitrogen oxides can travel downwind for a very substantial distance (up to 40 kilometres). The Air Quality Expert Group of DEFRA say in their report of 2018 entitled “Ultrafine Particles (UFP) in the UK” that at “a location such as Heathrow Airport, where aircraft tend to approach the airport from the east (flying over the London conurbation), there is potential for considerable exposure to UFP from aircraft”.
UFPs are minute particles emitted into the atmosphere from combustion. They are described by DEFRA as “Emissions of UFP arise primarily from combustion sources and especially transport-related sources which burn sulphur-containing fuels. Emissions from road transport affect all areas with major roads, emissions from shipping are important on the main shipping routes, and emissions from aviation are significant in the vicinity of major airports”.
UFPs are particularly harmful, penetrating deep into the lungs and from there into the body – something acknowledged by DEFRA in its report. Particulates and Nitrogen Dioxide together can be very harmful and affect breathing. Together they cause more than 28,000 deaths per year.

Air Quality Brentford

No Idling campaign

Saturday 4 May 2019 Thanks so much to OctInk in Brentford for donating the printing of these ‘I’m No Idler’ car decals as part of our No Idling campaign. We’re trying to encourage car users to switch off their engines to help reduce unnecessary emissions when stopped in traffic. Let us know if you’d like one for your car!

Hounslow Air Quality Summit

26 February 2019, Holiday Inn, Brentford Hounslow Council have set up a Working Group to focus on ways they can improve air quality, and protect local residents, especially those with vulnerabilities like children and people with existing underlying health issues. Air Quality Brentford was one of the community groups asked to attend this for their input. The public meeting followed in the afternoon. Here is a brief summary of some of the speakers.

People’s Question Time in Hounslow

Thurs 1 March 2018 The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, ventured over to Hounslow Civic Centre in the snow, with colleagues from the London Assembly to answer questions from the local audience. Chaired by Tony Arbour, the topics included: transport, safety, air quality and environment, housing, growing London’s economy.

Air Quality Brentford asked the Mayor this question (in a truncated version on the day and in full by email the following day):

Inclusion of Brentford in the ULEZ

23 Jan 2018 The Mayor of London has been consulting on the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) for the past 2 years. The 4th part of this consultation closes on 28 February 2018, asking where the zone should extend to. At the moment the ULEZ will stop at the other side of the North and South Circular in Chiswick, (not including the North and South Circular roads). Any polluting vehicles entering the ULEZ will need to pay a charge for doing so, limiting their use, which in turn will help make the air cleaner.

We believe that Brentford should also be included in the ULEZ especially with the major arterial routes of the M4 and A4 running through residential areas, and are asking that the ULEZ is extended to the M25 to include the whole of Greater London, in this mayoral term, so that all Londoners are allowed to breathe clean air.

Hostile Streets event at City Hall

Monday 4 December 2017 Following our trip to Bonnington Square we headed over to City Hall where we’d been invited to a ‘Hostile Streets’ event, reporting on a series of visits to Outer London junctions. Host Caroline Russell, London Assembly Member, stated that ‘one of the most extreme cases was in Brentford’ where she was stuck in the middle of fast-flowing traffic, with children who use the crossing on a daily basis for school. We asked if traffic on the A4 could be reduced to 30mph to help improve air quality and to improve safety through the residential area. The report lists decreasing traffic speed as one possible measure in improving such roads and this is now in the hands of TfL to consider. John Dales, from Urban Movement and a trustee of Living Streets, chaired the meeting and being local, is also keen to improve conditions on the A4. Dr Rachel Aldred, a Reader in Transport at the University of Westminster, had been looking at the risk factors involved. Lucy Saunders, from TfL said that their approach was to create ‘Healthy Streets’ which has an impact on all people. The Hostile Streets report can be read here – Brentford made it on to the front cover…..

Response to Hounslow Council’s Air Quality Action Plan consultation

8 December 2017 

Referring to p27 of the AQAP, see Figure 10, we are bemused that Brentford is not included as one of TfL’s 187 Focus Areas for air quality across London, within the M4/A4 Corridor, for air quality across London.