Air pollution Wales: Parents call for monitors at schools

Mum Alice wants to "do the right thing" walking her kids to school but worries about air pollution

Parents are calling for real-time air quality monitors to be installed near schools to monitor pollution.

Alice, who walks her son to school, said she wanted to do the "right thing" but wonders if it would be healthier to drive him.

The mum is campaigning for monitors at all Cardiff schools, but the council said it might not be value for money.

It comes amid renewed calls for the Welsh government to bring forward a Clean Air Bill.

Welsh ministers say they remain committed to passing legislation to improve air quality before the end of the Senedd term in May 2026.

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Alice's son Ollie attends Coryton Primary school, a stone's throw from the Coryton interchange where the M4 meets the A470.

"We want to get real-time air monitors so that we can see if there is a problem, and then you can start thinking about what mitigation you can do," she told the BBC Politics Wales programme.

A petition calling for real-time air quality monitors to be installed outside all of Cardiff's schools references the death of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah.

The nine-year-old, from south-east London, was the first person in the UK to have air pollution listed as the cause of death on their death certificate.

Coryton Primary school is close to where the M4 meets the A470

Cardiff council said monitoring devices had already been installed near Coryton Primary School as a condition of work linked to the construction of a new cancer centre in the area.

A spokesman said the monitors would gather data for a 15-month period, but acknowledged the information would not be publicly available.

He added that the council had previously monitored nitrogen dioxide levels outside nine schools over a two-year period and found that "none of the schools had elevated NO2 concentrations".

As a result, the council said installing real-time devices outside every school "might not be the best use of available resource".

"The council recognises there is no safe level of air pollution when it comes to public health and as part of its commitment to improving air quality in Cardiff a variety of steps to reduce air pollution have already been introduced and many more plans are being considered," the spokesman added.

Parents have been using hand-held air quality monitors

In January 2021, ministers published a paper outlining proposals to tackle air pollution, but a Clean Air Bill was not included in the government's legislative programme for the first year of the new Senedd term.

Joseph Carter, of Healthy Air Cymru, said: "It's frustrating that something as important as dealing with air pollution has taken so long.

"We keep being told positive things by politicians but we need action and we need Welsh government to prioritise this."

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Deputy Minister for Climate Change Lee Waters said it was "a priority" to pass the legislation in this Senedd term.

"We are working on the details of the legislation, which is slow and complicated, but that's not all we're doing," he added.

Find out more by watching Politics Wales on BBC One Wales at 10:15 GMT on Sunday and on the BBC iPlayer.

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