In February UNICEF- the United Nations children’s agency - called air pollution a public health emergency.
Day in, day out, our children are breathing dangerously high levels of air pollution. Across 86% of the UK, children are breathing in harmful levels of toxic air. Toxic air can harm their lungs, damage the development of their brains and stunt their growth. And it could leave them with lasting problems like asthma, badly affecting their futures.
A major contributor to air pollution the build-up of traffic, especially outside schools, when busy parents arrive by car to drop off and collect their children.
Sitting in a car with the engine idling is a major contributing factor to producing dangerously toxic air which is breathed in by our children.
1 in 3 children are growing up in the UK breathing unsafe levels of air pollution.
Children experience particularly high concentrations of air pollution while they are on the school run and when playing outside at break time. Compared to adults, primary and nursery school children were exposed to 30% higher levels of black carbon on the school run along busy roads, primarily because they are closer to vehicle exhausts.
Children are the least responsible for polluting the air but the most vulnerable to its harmful effects. This is wrong. Every child has the right to health. Every child has the right to live, learn and play in a clean and safe environment.
Speaking this week Martyn Barber said: "If elected as your local Councillor I will press our local authority to check pollution levels outside schools and to introduce no-idling zones so that we can make a small step to improving a major problem.
