The government’s new clean air plan has been branded inadequate by the leaders of eight heavily polluted cities, as campaigners said banning petrol and diesel cars from 2040 would not help the thousands dying each year from illnesses linked to toxic fumes.
The long-awaited report was published by Michael Gove, the environment secretary, on Wednesday, after a court ruled last year that the government must improve its proposals for tackling illegal levels of pollution.
It confirmed conventional petrol and diesel cars would be banned in 23 years but the government refused to legislate for more “clean air zones” that would charge the dirtiest vehicles to enter some of the UK’s most polluted cities.
The plan also stopped short of bringing in a scrappage scheme to encourage people to give up diesel cars, considering only a “targeted” version to incentivise some some groups of people on low incomes or in particularly polluted areas.
In a letter to Gove, the leaders of Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Southampton, Leicester and Oxford city councils called for urgent legislation and a proper diesel scrappage scheme, saying the long-awaited air quality plan would not enable them to keep to their legal limits on pollution.
The city leaders said the “updated clean air plan, while indicating long-term ambition, still lacks some specific actions that would enable us to meet the legal limits and establish safer air sooner rather than later”.
The criticism means the government could face further legal action to force it to produce a more comprehensive plan, with environmentalists, doctors and opposition politicians arguing it is insufficient to deal with a “health emergency” estimated to be killing 40,000 people a year.
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