Air pollution

What is air pollution and why should we care?

The air we breath contains chemicals and materials from our everyday activities as well as fumes from both local and distant sources. Inner city areas like Southwark tend to have higher concentrations of these fumes, causing our air to become polluted.

At high levels, pollutants can cause health problems, particularly to people who suffer from lung and heart conditions. Air pollution also damages our environment, destroying the eco system in our green spaces and even corroding the bricks of our buildings.

Southwark air quality strategy and action plan consultation

We are consulting on the air quality strategy and action plan between 1 March 2011 to 20 April 2011. All answers can be submitted online.

The document is in two parts:

• The air quality strategy which details how we plan to make air quality a priority throughout council departments in the process of carrying out our work.

• The air quality action plan which contains 20 measures that we propose to improve air quality in Southwark.  These measures range from reducing the impact of traffic pollution to how we monitor air quality within the borough.

All responses that we receive will be used to write the final draft of the strategy and action plan which will be returned to councillors for formal adoption later in the year.