The British Heart Foundation has joined people who are pressing our Government to clean up our dirty air. This is because, as they put it, exposure to air pollution brings increased risk of heart attack and stroke and worsening of heart failure, angina and atrial fibrillation. Small particles from traffic exhaust, easily inhaled, alter the function of the heart and arteries.

A Government advisory group had separately reported that if all fine particle matter, mainly caused by car fumes and wear and tear from car tyres, were removed from the atmosphere the average life expectancy of those London children now aged seven would be a whole nine months longer. That’s lives shortened not because of diet or sloth, but simply from breathing.

Last month, the UK Supreme Court ordered the Government to produce, by the end of this year, a plan to reduce levels of nitrogen dioxide, a gas mainly produced by diesel engines and currently thought to be as dangerous to health as the particles. That is separate to EU legal proceedings possibly to cost the UK millions of pounds in fines for its dirty air.

Some may think our path was already sufficiently greening, but fact and law now clearly say otherwise. Because the UK Supreme Court decision has significant implications for infrastructure such as Heathrow/Gatwick expansion and a new east London Thames crossing, we can expect the required plan to be far reaching. I for one will then be breathing far easier.

K Brown

Old Park Road, Palmers Green