Toxic air has been at illegal levels in most urban areas
in the UK for nearly a decade.
Every year an estimated 9,500 people die early
due to long-term exposure to air pollution.
Children are particularly vulnerable
as their lungs are still developing.
So we conducted an experiment to measure the air quality
of one family’s walk to school along one of the
most polluted roads in London.
I’m Natasha, I’m Simona’s mum.
I’ve been living here for the past 30 years.
– What about me?
[Natasha laughs] It’s all about you.
Yeah, our journey to school is very, very stuffy,
very suffocating. You can’t breathe.
It can definitely damage her development,
probably her lungs and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Even with my newborn, it’s even worse.
Each day Natasha, Simona and her baby brother
walk to school and a large part of their 30-minute school run
takes them down Marylebone Road, one of the most polluted
in the country.
We strapped an air monitor to the pram, which measures
the levels of pollutants PM2.5 and PM10.
Simona carried a monitor on her back that measures
the levels of nitrogen dioxide.
PM2.5 and PM10 are tiny particulate matter that
we recorded in real time by the second.
Nitrogen dioxide or NO2 is emitted by diesel cars
and is one of the most harmful gases.
We recorded NO2 by the minute.
These lines indicate the EU annual mean legal limits for each.
The British government is breaking the law when these
legal limits are exceeded over the course of a year.
So let's see the experiment.
Natasha and her kids begin their journey down
Marylebone Road and as you will see, the data will spike
at this first busy intersection.
Here’s pollution expert Professor Jonathan Grigg
to talk us through more of the data.
So the two measures, the PM2.5, PM10 and nitrogen dioxide
can be thought of as a combined mixture
and we can't really, in our big studies,
distinguish which is the most toxic part
because they're all emitted together.
So this is a pretty typical London road.
You've got a high level of vehicles,
many of those diesel vehicles, which is generating
lots of nitrogen dioxide particles.
Interestingly, she's going through this sort of
canyon here, where I suspect a lot of the gases and particles
are being trapped.
That's why you're seeing this subtle spike.
Children are particularly vulnerable from air pollution
because their lungs are developing and so
even small changes in the development
can actually have large effects over the life course
of a child.
So here they reach the school and in schools situated
in areas of very high pollution, children tend to have
slightly lower levels of lung function.
Parents ask me in my clinic: 'what can we do?'
and it's very difficult to give advice.
I think what we have to think about it is, it's a public health measure.
And it's up to government and local government
to do the action.
Even though pollution was lower than usual on this day,
because the family are exposed to toxic air throughout the year,
these levels are illegal.
But what about the school itself?
Simona’s school, St Mary’s Bryanston Square,
is one of the 50 most polluted schools in the UK.
The school has been promised £20,000 from the mayor
and Westminster council to install a system to filter dirty air.
The school closes the road during morning drop-off
and end of school pick-up to prevent cars from idling
outside the gates.
Students have pollution masks to wear during school trips.
So the school is doing all it can to mitigate the impact
of pollution on its students.
But what about local government?
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, introduced an ultra-low emission zone
in April this year, levying a charge on the worst-polluting vehicles.
It only currently covers a small area of central London.
It is due to be extended in late 2021.
Meanwhile, London’s air remains illegally dirty.