Official figures show that Croydon’s air quality is so poor, 106 children aged five years old or younger had to be admitted to Croydon University Hospital with respiratory difficulties in 2023.
Toxic air: parts of Croydon have levels of pollution three times higher than international standards
The details were obtained through a Freedom of Information request to the Croydon Health Services NHS Trust.
Similar FoIs across 21 other London hospitals showed more than 15,000 children were admitted in 2023 with serious breathing difficulties.
The figures were obtained by air pollution campaigners, Mums for Lungs, who have called for the removal of all diesel vehicles by at least 2030.
Across England as a whole, 15,328 children aged 19 or under were admitted into hospital for serious asthma attacks in 2022-2023, according to Public Health England. For London, the figure is 2,705.
Air quality in Croydon is notoriously poor, with high levels of pollution near some of the busiest roads and junctions, all in breach of World Health Organization standards.
Croydon mum Karina Fernandez said, “For far too long already the air in London and beyond has been so polluted it is making children sick. My son and I both have asthma and it is harrowing. No parent should sit in A&E watching anxiously over their child’s breath. We need less cars and wood-burning now.”
Air pollution monitors in Croydon continue to show high levels of some of the most dangerous forms of pollution – including nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter (PM 2.5) – although research by Inside Croydon suggests that Croydon Council is failing to maintain its duties in operating air quality monitors. One such monitor has not functioned since 2020.
Demanding better: pupils at Oasis Ryland in Croydon taking part in a Mums for Lungs protest
Exposure to PM 2.5 can result in serious impacts to health, especially in vulnerable groups of people such as the young and elderly. Due to the small size of many of the particles, some of these toxins may enter the bloodstream and be transported around the body, lodging in the heart, brain and other organs.
Short-term exposure to concentrations of NO2 can cause inflammation of the airways and increase susceptibility to respiratory infections and to allergens. NO2 can exacerbate the symptoms of those already suffering from lung or heart conditions.
Croydon’s air quality monitor in Norbury is measuring NO2 at 28μg/m3, three times over the WHO guidelines.
Dr Anna Moore, a respiratory doctor who works in a London NHS Hospital, said: “These figures demonstrate that there are hundreds of children who are in hospital with conditions that could be prevented. At a time when NHS resources are stretched thin, we need urgently to clean up our air, including completely phasing out the most heavily polluting diesel cars, trucks and vans and focus on infrastructure which enables safe walking and cycling as this is vital for long-term health.”
Pro-pollution: Croydon’s Tory Mayor Jason Perry
In Croydon, the borough’s pro-pollution Mayor, Jason Perry, has been scoring political points by having cycling infrastructure ripped out, making it more dangerous for people to cycle. This came after he spent most part of a year acting as a Facebook page administrator and “expert” for a group opposing the expansion of ULEZ – London’s ultra-low emissions zone.
And the council, together with Merton, Kingston and Sutton, continues to spend tens of millions of pounds per year to fund the operation of the Viridor waste incinerator at Beddington, which continues to regularly operate in breach of its licence, with incidents including pumping clouds of acidic pollution into the skies above south London.
Road transport is the largest contributor to air pollution in London. Data suggests that air pollution contributes to around 4,000 early deaths each year in London.
Mums for Lungs has written to Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer calling for them to discourage people from buying diesel vehicles and to set a target for England to be diesel-free by 2030, with limited exemptions, alongside action on wood-burning and creating more School Streets, which restrict car use at drop off and pick up.
Mums for Lungs’ Jemima Hartshorn said, “Thousands of children are unable to breathe because of preventable air pollution. This must change.
“So many children are being admitted to hospitals with serious cases of asthma, and all the evidence shows that damaging lungs at an early age can cause lifelong health conditions.
“The next national government, mayors and local authorities must all use their powers to phase out diesel vehicles and protect children from painful and debilitating health conditions.”
Read more: Perry’s ULEZ Facebook page is part of Tory ‘vile cesspit’ of racism
Read more: Incinerator goes 7 times over level for acidic hydrogen chloride
Read more: Licensed to print money: incinerator’s five latest breaches
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Thanks Inside Croydon. I think the role of the incinerator is underplayed. Using RAC data for emissions, even all of Sutton’s cars produce only a half of the CO2 from the incinerator over a year. That could translate into very high levels of toxic PM 2.5 and NOx.
Re Dr Moore’s comment “…we need urgently to ….focus on infrastructure which enables safe walking and cycling as this is vital for long term health.”
But not much hope of that in south Croydon, given the recent backwards move in the bases / wands being removed, with Perry seemingly leading the case against them, with even Philp evidently supporting this move, grandstanding recently for a photo in front of the workman removing the bases. And last but not least, the significant number of pro car / anti cyclist residents. Shameful.
Mums for Lungs (M4L) is a great campaign and while I don’t generally care for reductionism (“ban diesel”), keeping it simple is useful to make the point and the nuances can be dealt with later.
Nuances, because it’s a technology issue rather than a fuel specific one.
NOx/ NO/ NO2 is bad enough, but it’s the PM2.5 particulates that’ll potentially kill you.
Diesels conforming to the most recent EU standards (i.e. registered from September 2015 onwards) produce almost no ‘tailpipe’ PM2.5 – to the extent whereby it’s very difficult to even measure.
Similarly, modern diesel NOx/ NO/ NO2 outputs are neglibly different to those of petrol cars.
I know a truck filter manufacturer that claims that the technoloy is now such that, in cities, there’s less particulate matter coming out of the exhaust than in the air going in to it.
Thus nearly all road transport PM2.5 (in post-2014 vehicles) comes from tyres and brakes, regardless of whether diesel, petrol or EV. (M4L acknowledges this).
NOx/ NO/ NO2 issues apply more-or-less equally to all fossil fuel transport.
Older diesels (pre-2014 standards), of course, have no place being driven in towns at all. Their putative fuel efficiency and lower CO2 (than petrol) benefits are wiped out; and the particulate filters fail when used for repeated cold, short journeys.
M4L is national though, and the picture is more complicated still if we’re talking about London.
30% of London’s PM2.5 is from road transport.
Unfortunately, apparently, 50% of that comes from outside London (GLA). (It hadn’t to occurred to me in this context before, but obviously the M25 is a giant cyclotron of airborne filth that diffuses London-ward.)
If 50% of the 30% of road transport PM2.5 is London local, then it puts road transport’s contribution at about the same level as wood burning (domestic stoves and industrial biomass) (16%) and cooking (13%).
Interestingly, in central London, commercial cooking PM2.5 has overtaken that from road transport and is 60% of it.
There is an extrapolation of sorts to be had here.
Norbury is mentioned above.
Between the site of the old Norbury pub, and the station; there are fast food outlets, known contributors to unhealthy eating in children, about every 40 metres. I expect it’s not far off that from the Norbury pub to West Croydon station.
About 25% of Year 6 London children are obese, and 40% are overweight (GLA, Jan 24).
Some studies suggest 25% of new asthma diagnoses in children can be related to obesity.
So… and I’m not being facetious here: while we understandably crack down on older diesels and wood burners; a major crack down on takeaways wouldn’t hurt.
If we limited new – there’s quite enough already – and changed cooking practices in the existing, while regulating their air quality outputs, we might reduce childhood obesity (fewer respiratory complaints) and reduce PM2.5 particulates (fewer respiratory complaints) simultaneously.
A three-pronged attack might yield some decent health benefits; and prove to be a M4L win-win.