“We want to empower schools” says Green Parliamentary Candidate for Vauxhall Gulnar Hasnain as Lambeth Green Party are awarded £1000 to support local schools and raise awareness of pollution levels, including installing monitors to counteract Labour’s cover up attempts.
The move comes after Labour in Lambeth refused to provide monitors, deleted references to air pollution deaths and impact on schools from council motion.
Lambeth Green Party has been chosen by Mapping for Change to mobilise schools in Lambeth, and undertake Air Quality Mapping projects. It is one of just four groups selected for £1,000 of funding, after communities applied from across London.
Lambeth Green Party will use the award to support local schools and raise awareness of the dangerous levels of pollution in the area and the damage it is doing to health. The Greens want to build capacity within schools so that they can take on their own monitoring projects and integrate them as part of the school curriculum.
Brixton Road A23, is expected to exceed annual limits for 2015 in the coming days and exceeded the limits the most times in 2014. Photograph courtesy of Oxyman.
It comes after Lambeth Council refused to contact schools about the air quality risk, and deleted references to over 100 estimated deaths, after a council motion was tabled by the Green Party in July. The council faced accusations of a ‘cover up’. The Green Party responded by writing to 63 local schools in the borough.
Lambeth has some of the worst air pollution in London. Dozens of Lambeth schools lie within 150 metres of roads carrying 10,000 vehicles a day, whose children are at risk from air pollution. Lambeth also incinerates its waste, effecting many outside the borough.
Gulnar Hasnain, air quality campaigner for the Lambeth Green Party and Parliamentary Candidate for Vauxhall said: “Brixton Road managed to exceed the nitrogen dioxide (NO2) hourly limit value more times than any other site in London last year, and is expected to exceed the EU annual limit for ALL of 2015 in the next few days.”
“Labour-run Lambeth Council has deliberately withheld important information from residents about air quality and the risk that pollution poses to children at Lambeth schools. We want to empower schools to be able to build the evidence to push for more measures to tackle the dangerous levels of air pollution.”
The news comes as the Mayor’s three month consultation over plans for an ultra low emission zone (ULEZ) in central London from 2020 closed. Greens are pushing for more action to tackle poor air quality, such as a an expansion of the ULEZ, 20mph limits to smooth traffic flow, large scale ‘greening’ initiatives and low-emission buses on key routes. At times of high air pollution, schools are also being advised to keep vulnerable children away from polluted areas during air pollution ‘episodes’. Keeping pupils’ away from polluted areas during the school day could reduce the number of asthma attacks and even avoid some developing potentially lifelong lung damage.