YP Letters: Parents can help pollution fight by cutting '˜idling' engines

I READ with interest your article “It’s time to clear the air” (The Yorkshire Post, October 24) on Sheffield Council’s initiatives to control air pollution in the city.

I am a resident of Burngreave, just to the north of the city centre. There are repeated instances of illegally high levels of nitrogen dioxide on our streets especially outside schools.

Children are particularly susceptible to disease caused by air pollution. Some local residents formed the Burngreave Clean Air Campaign and we have been out in recent weeks collecting signatures on a petition for the council to act to reduce air pollution.

People seemed keen to talk to us and some talked about respiratory disease including asthma and cancer in their family.

Although most people are now aware that diesel engines are even more polluting than petrol engines, many do not realise that leaving the engine running whilst a vehicle is stationary is especially polluting.

This is a particular problem outside schools, where some people dropping off or collecting children let their engines “idle” for periods of time. As children’s lungs are so vulnerable to the effects of pollution this is really damaging, and many drivers don’t realise that those inside the vehicle are also at increased risk.

My own son, when aged seven, thought that the inhalers used to treat childhood asthma were a kind of cool fashion accessory, as so many children in his class had them. He didn’t want to be left out! Soon enough he had a ride in an ambulance to hospital, fighting for his breath. Pollution levels have not improved since then.

“Air pollution” and “Nitrogen dioxide poisoning” do not appear on death certificates and one must suspect that your shocking figure of 500 deaths resulting from poor air in Sheffield due to poor air is probably an under-estimate.

Sheffield Council has wide support for the efforts to improve our city’s air. It is definitely an emergency and anti-idling and other measures should be adopted without delay, but a long-term strategy is well overdue.

From: Jordan Moore, Stradbroke Road, Sheffield.

IF Sheffield Council believes tree-feeling is the way forward for Britain’s supposedly “outdoor city” why won’t it allow a referendum of all local residents? That would be one way of solving this issue before it causes even more embarrassment – or does the council know that it would lose?