Comply with European law on air quality
It's not acceptable that people are being killed in Scotland because fumes from traffic remain too high.
Scotland’s towns and cities have a responsibility to meet the air quality targets laid down in EU law. If they don’t meet these targets, they face the prospect of legal action from those affected by dangerous levels of pollution. The law permits any individual or other party to make a complaint to the Commission regarding failure to implement or failure to achieve the aims of the Directives. An individual or other party could also raise proceedings against the Scottish and UK governments regarding their breach of the implementation of the Directives.
Despite more than a decade of statutory monitoring and action requirements, awareness of local air quality problems in the UK has slipped, as the focus has moved on to the global challenge of greenhouse gas emissions and their role in creating climate change.
Widespread urban air pollution is of course a direct reflection of our economy’s continuing reliance on oil. 98% of the fuel used for transport in the UK is oil – an extremely dangerous over-dependence at a time when there are growing concerns about the peaking of global oil production (‘Peak Oil’). If we can kick our addiction to oil for transport, we will not only save lives and reduce carbon emissions, but also strengthen society’s resilience in the face of future energy security crises.
While more efficient engines (partly due to European legislation) are helping to combat vehicles emissions, including those from buses and lorries, these improvements have been undermined by increasing traffic volumes.
Health-based national objectives and statutory European limits for key pollutants (NO2 and PM10) continue to be exceeded across Scotland’s four largest cities, and a growing number of locations within the cities are showing actual or potential exceedances. The situation – primarily caused by road transport – is in some cases getting worse rather than better.
Among the three Scottish cities (Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow), which have produced Action Plans, these are characterised by (i) a lack of evidence as to the success or otherwise of past actions, (ii) until recently, a general reluctance (for cost / acceptability reasons) to contemplate some of the measures which are most likely to have the biggest air quality benefits and (iii) a general lack of clarity about prioritisation, and in particular a lack of priority for the most sustainable modes of transport – walking and cycling.
The Local Authorities in the four cities are hampered by their inability to influence key aspects of trans-border transport which are under the control of the Scottish Government, for example, traffic management on trunk roads and motorways, and the multi-billion pound trunk road-building programme.
The tackling of air pollution in our cities will require a radical rethink of transport investment (and planning) priorities – a shift to a ‘healthy and sustainable transport’ policy. We also need to see decisions that concentrate less on the demands of private car commuting and more on delivering a step-change in the quality of public transport, so that car users will switch modes in bigger numbers.