On 25th March we held our 5th Northern Air Quality Conference – and our eleventh conference overall – back at Bridgewater Hall in the heart of Manchester.
Cllr Beverley Nielsen again hosted the event and navigated us through the day seamlessly. The first speaker she was called on to introduce was Professor Greg Marsden from the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds.
Greg is in charge of the five-year Infuze project in Leeds, which is looking at ways to engage with people to create future cities in which car ownership isn’t the default position. What would those cities look like?
Greg referred to the Climate Change Committee’s recent report and expressed his scepticism about some of the predictions it contained. The scale of change demanded, he tells us, is enormous, an example being the idea that we might quadruple our use of buses.
But more significantly, Greg is working on ways to reduce all car use, electric or otherwise. Of particular concern is that once our domestic car fleet is electrified and people own cars that are better to drive and cheaper to drive, they will drive more. And Greg presented some interesting facts about car use which applies to both EVs and ICE cars. 33% of cars don’t move on any given day and cars spend 96% of the time stationary. The evidence is there that we don’t actually use them very much but people have invested so much in owning them – £76bn – that they have a disinclination to use alternative forms of transport.
In a business as usual scenario Greg sees a future with 20% more cars on the road and the growth of EV charging infrastructure will see cars literally hard-wired into society.
Second to speak was Katie Williams, the Delivery Manager for the Air Quality and Aerosol Metrology Group at the National Physical Laboratory. The NPL is the national measurement standards laboratory of the United Kingdom, which explains how Katie could present a slide of her holding the UK’s kilogram. that is, the UK’s national standard kilogram, copy number 18 of the International Prototype of the Kilogram, apparently.
Of course Katie’s work is in air quality monitoring and she talked us through the monitoring networks that NPL operate across the UK as well as the pollutants that they are monitoring. There are three distinct networks collecting a variety of data: a Heavy Metals Network, a Particle concentration and numbers Network, and a Black Carbon Network.
Taking sampling results from a number of sites over a number of years, Katie showed how levels have changed over time. Monitoring on the busy Marylebone Road in London shows how the presence of lead in our environment has been slashed since 1980. However 35% of the lead that is currently present is generated by tyre and brake wear.
After a quick break we had our panel discussion. A trio of the panel represented three different ways that air quality in the UK is monitored. Mark Tebutt is a
citizen scientist from Chorley who bought an AQ monitor for his garden in 2017 and now has a network of 12 across the borough. James Allan from the University of Manchester has worked as a scientist within the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and was heavily involved in setting up the Manchester Air Quality Supersite in 2019. Jo Solan, Senior Air Quality Consultant from Ricardo, the lead sponsor of the conference completed the triumvirate. We were also pleased to have Kathryn Miller, a PhD student at Lancaster University on the panel and Sean McCabe from Bohemian FC in Dublin who joined halfway through, having missed his flight: ‘a fresh pair of legs’ as he described his second half appearance.
Initial discussion surrounded monitoring, James agreed that air quality is improving generally but there’s a lot to be achieve by continuing to monitor. The issues get more complex, he explained, and we have to start asking new questions about how to continue this improvement. For Mark’s part, he explained how small, low-cost networks such as his filled in the gaps and by being hyper-local can raise awareness of things that need greater attention. Jo also explained how much better the technology is these days. Ricardo co-locate sensors with reference monitors so they know their data is accurate. ‘We want to make sure that the data we’re releasing is of use to people,’ she said.
Kathryn continued the theme of making information widely available, explaining that the community groups she is working with are desperate for more data, not country-wide but on their own streets. To that end she believes there’s a need for better quality low quality monitors.
Discussion turned to domestic wood burning and the fact that the pollution burden faced by rural communities is becoming equal to that faced by people in cities. This is prompting discussion about how we monitor such emissions.
Sean’s arrival brought a change of tack to the conversation. We invited Sean on the basis of his 15 years working in the field of social justice and the fact that Bohs have just launched the Clean Air Champions League (read more about that in our latest magazine). As a fan-owned club with deep roots in the community, the topic of discussion moved onto public engagement and getting people – to use another football expression – onside.
Following lunch Zack Polanski, Deputy leader of the Green Party, took the stage. Zack spoke at our London conference in 2023 and what he said then was just as relevant in Manchester yesterday. He explained the environment in which he works – the London Assembly – and how the 25 Assembly Members are responsible for holding the Mayor to account. Zack has had run-ins aplenty with Sadiq Khan but is quick to recognise the things he has achieved, notably the ULEZ expansion. He explains however, how he would like to have seen things pushed further including the implementation of Road User Charging which was at one time being actively considered.
Similarly, he praised Manchester’s Andy Burnham for his work on the Bee Network but was critical of the decision not to implement a Clean Air Zone.
Zack went on to cover social issues, highlighting that it is the poorest people who live in the most industrialised areas. He emphasised the importance of Zane’s Law in protecting the poor and the vulnerable, explaining that there cannot be environmental justice without racial and economic justice.
Jon Burke is currently is currently Gloucester City Council’s Climate Change and Decarbonisation Lead but at the conference he focussed on his earlier, ground-breaking work in Hackney. He introduced himself as some – particularly on social media – see him: ‘the guy who hates cars’. While that’s not strictly true, he has certainly applied some inspiration and perspiration to making life difficult for them: ‘The car is a nexus that connects a lot of problems’ he begins, ‘It’s like an invasive species in our urban environment.’
At Hackney he asked himself how he could use policies to improve people’s lives. He began by addressing the fact that 80% of the cars in the borough weren’t owned by people who lived there, so introduced controlled parking zones as a first step in making Hackney a place more amenable to its residents. He used the example of how the removal of cars parked along Queensbridge Road allowed for the creation of a cycle path and an altogether more pleasant environment.
Continuing this, he delivered the UK’s largest number of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and School Streets, and introduced green infrastructure in terms of both tree planting and the installation of green screens. Beautifying the borough was always to the front of his mind. An acid test, he says is that while people on the boundaries of an LTN might think it’s a pain having to drive further, if they can say the streets are nicer, you’ve won. If they don’t you’ve lost.
After another break for coffee and the chance to engage with our exhibitors upstairs, Professor Francis Pope from the University of Birmingham talked to us about the link between air pollution and cognition. In February, Francis published his research on this subject which attracted the attention of the national press. This was the first time he had explained the research at a conference.
In the research, subjects took a cognitive test before being exposed to candle smoke. It was found that when they retook the test four hours later, that selective attention in particular had been affected. This relates to someone’s ability to concentrate.
Exposure to air pollution has been linked to inflammation and Francis believes that this is the reason for the decline in cognitive function. He illustrated his point by pointing to the grogginess we feel when suffering from a cold, ‘inflammation is the body’s way of making us slow down,’ he explained.
The implications of this are wide-reaching as it can be linked to issues from children’s ability to learn to economic productivity.
Our final speaker was Liz Godfrey, the Greater Manchester Coordinator for Mums for Lungs. Liz told us how the campaign group was established in London in 2017 but, as the capital has cleaned up its act, much of their current work takes place across the country. Greater Manchester in particular is a focus for their efforts, as the air in the city is particularly bad.
The group’s stated priorities are to campaign for school streets, lobby against wood burning, and a phase-out of diesel.
While there are now 700 school streets in London, the rest of the country has been slow on the uptake. Most in Manchester are trials relying on volunteers, but just before the last Mayoral election, Andy Burnham committed to accelerating their roll-out and the group are in regular contact with him over this.
Mums for Lungs have always been effective at uncovering information and Liz cited two examples of how they have built campaigns around Freedom of Information requests. One such request revealed that in Manchester, emergency admissions for asthma were nearly twice the national average. What’s more, between 2021 and 2023, they had risen by 97%, from 684 to 1,345. One school has been found to have an asthma rate of 40%
Another FOI around domestic wood burning revealed that following 450 complaints in one year in Greater Manchester, no fines were issued.
Another local concern that Liz raised was of diesel vehicles in Manchester – a city without a Clean Air Zone. There has been almost no change in the number of diesels on the street of Manchester since 2017 and no incentive for drivers not to buy a diesel. What’s worse, because they’ve been chased out of many cities, used diesels are cheap and therefore attractive to those living in areas were there has been no action taken against them. ‘We’re a sink for used diesels,’ said Liz.
And on that note the conference came to a close. As we prepare the line-up for our National Air Quality Conference in London on 4th November, I’d like to thank the speakers and panelists who gave up there time to attend the Northern event yesterday.
I’d also like to thank the exhibitors and sponsors who supported the event and look forward to seeing them at many more in the future.
The various presentations are available to view here.
Anyone wanting more information about exhibiting at or attending our conferences should contact Andy: a.lees@spacehouse.co.uk 0784 363 2609