Air pollution causes more than one in 20 deaths in Wigan

Campaigners have criticised the Government's slow response to "dangerous fine particle air pollution", and urged it to bring the UK's air quality targets in line with global health advice.

The country recently marked National Clean Air Day, which is an opportunity for people to write to their local councillors and MPs to express concerns regarding their local area's air quality.

Office for Health Improvement and Disparities figures show air pollution was responsible for 6.1 per cent of the deaths of people in Wigan aged over 30 in 2022.

This was up from 5.6 per cent the year before, but was below pre-pandemic levels of 6.2 per cent.

Imogen Martineau, head of UK portfolio at the Clean Air Fund, said the UK is "going in the wrong direction in tackling air pollution".

The Government says it wants to halve pollution levels of fine particles to reach an annual mean concentration of 10 micrograms per cubic metre by 2040.

The World Health Organization's current advice says this figure should be no more than five micrograms per cubic metre.

Ms Martineau said policymakers must work towards the WHO's air quality guidelines, adding: "It’s time to recognise the co-benefits which clean air can bring – better health, action on climate change, and improved economies."

Climate campaigners the Friends of the Earth said air pollution unfairly affects marginalised communities, especially those in cities.

The figures showed significant regional inequality across England, with 17 of the 18 areas with the worst air pollution death rates in London. The other was Watford, a commuter town in the East of England.

In London in 2022, 7.1 per cent of the deaths of people aged 30 or above were due to air pollution.

At the other end of the scale, the 11 areas with the lowest proportion of air pollution-related deaths were all in the South West, with air pollution responsible for 4.6 per cent of deaths in the region.

In the North West, 5.6 per cent of deaths in 2022 were due to air pollution.

Larissa Lockwood, director of clean air at Global Action Plan, said: "The solutions to our air pollution problem already exist. We need the Government to take urgent action to ensure everyone in the UK can breathe cleaner air."

Ms Lockwood said providing people with greener travel options and phasing out wood burning in urban areas would help improve air quality.

"No one should have their life cut short because they do not have access to clean air," she added.

Friends of the Earth said the Government "is not acknowledging" the dangers of air pollution.

Climate, transport and air pollution campaigner Jenny Bates said: "The Government must act now by bringing particulate matter targets in line with the WHO’s interim guidelines by 2030, and enshrine the right to clean air."

A Wigan Council spokesperson said “We proactively monitor our local air quality with stations in Wigan and Leigh, and 52 nitrogen dioxide tubes across the borough.

“Latest figures show that the borough is broadly compliant to national air quality standards. We are not complacent about this issue, and have successfully bid for additional DEFRA funding to enable local initiatives on air quality.

“As a council, we require new developments built in our area to include electric vehicle chargers and we are exploring options to expand charging infrastructure in on-street parking locations and car parks.”

A government spokesperson said it has made "significant progress improving air quality since 2010".

They said: "We have delivered significant reductions in emissions – with fine particulate matter falling by 24 per cent , and nitrogen oxides down by 48 per cent.

"We also met our targets to reduce emissions for all five key pollutants in the latest reporting year."

One of the measures taken to reduce air pollution has been to encourage the uptake of electric vehicles.

Figures from the Department for Transport show there were 81 publicly available electric vehicle charging devices in Wigan as of October last year, including 18 rapid chargers.

This was up from 40 a year earlier but for a borough population of more than 320,000, this is still quite a small number compared to other parts of the country, and the price of electric vehicles remains prohibitively high for many.

Many homes too don’t lend themselves to domestic charging points (for example terraced homes with on-street parking) and surveys show that some people are still put off buying EVs because of the limitations of battery charges, although these are improving all the time.

Last December Greater Manchester scrapped longstanding and contentious plans for a clean air charging zone.

Mayor Andy Burnham said new data showed the English city region could now meet legal clean air targets more quickly by investing in public transport instead.

“The way to do this was not to push people into hardship, to threaten people’s businesses and livelihoods,” he said. “The path to net zero has to be to take people with it rather than seeking to punish people.”

Many of Wigan’s main roads are, for historical reasons, narrower than the national average which makes it harder to ease congestion. Where it can, the local authority has introduced cycle and bus lanes.

For a period there was a bus lane on Wallgate but it was scrapped because it seemed to be causing more harm than good.