Oxford proposes air quality action plan to Gove

Oxford City Council has written to environment secretary Michael Gove proposing a ten point action plan that would help the city and others tackle air quality issues.

The plan, which was sent to Gove by Councillor Tom Hayes, Oxford City Council’s board member for a safer and greener environment, calls for the government to end the sale of all new polluting vehicles earlier than 2040.

It also recommends installing a charging infrastructure to accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles and to revise Vehicle Excise Duty to incentivise the purchase of new and second-hand zero-emissions vehicles.

Other points in the plan include to revise the standard driving licence to increase the maximum payload of light goods vehicles. This is because electric vans, due to their batteries, tend to be heavier than other vans. It also wants to implement a polluting vehicle scrappage scheme.

The plan also calls on the government to tighten clean air standards in line with the latest scientific evidence. The European Union set the legal limit for NO2 as 40µg/m3, but this was supposed to be met in 2010. Scientific evidence has moved on since then, and the World Health Organization is currently looking at changing its current 40µg/m3 limit.

In addition, Oxford City Council has asked Gove to take into account Oxford’s local data for developing national air quality measures. The Government currently only uses Oxford’s three continuous monitoring stations to measure air pollution; it does not take into account the City Council’s 72 other monitoring locations.

The action plan also wants to establish an independent watchdog to enforce air quality measures after leaving the European Union and to launch a public health campaign to highlight the dangers of air pollution and the health benefits of switching to electric vehicles.

The Council also urges government to put equity to those on low incomes at the heart of every approach.

Councillor Tom Hayes said: “Gove has the chance to put the health of towns and cities across the UK first by signing up to our 10-point contract and making the much-needed step-changes to accelerate the electric revolution.”