‘Increased vehicle mileage resulting from the need to negotiate routes around road closures adds greatly to air pollution’

• I AGREE whole-heartedly with Councillor Praful Nargund’s Forum view (Air pollution in London is one of the biggest health crises we face, September 15), and I speak with feeling in that I believe that my husband’s fatal lung cancer was caused in part by the capital’s air pollution.

It is extremely worrying, therefore, that, by Islington Council’s own admission, its LTN, low traffic neighbourhood, programme has had no effect on reducing air pollution, and may even have made the situation worse.

Since improving air quality is heralded as the main justification for the scheme this is a dismal state of affairs.

With the imposition of new LTNs in prospect, notably in Barnsbury – where the recently announced plan to close 14 roads for no good reason is hugely unpopular – this is an issue that must be addressed by the council.

We can all see with our own eyes, and feel painfully in our lungs, that diverting traffic from minor roads onto “boundary roads” causes long traffic jams, with engines idling, creating more noxious emissions and adding to journey times.

Increased vehicle mileage resulting from the need to negotiate routes around road closures also adds greatly to air pollution.

In July 2023, apparently disregarding the results of its own research, Islington made permanent a trial LTN in the area of St Mary’s Church, which had been launched in February 2022.

This was despite the fact that its Pre-consultation Monitoring Report, published in March 2023, concluded that “the [St Mary’s] scheme itself has not had a significant impact on air quality to date”.

Indeed, the report went on to say: “…there has generally been a moderate increase in the concentration of NO2 between the two periods assessed, both within the St Mary’s Church LTN scheme area and across the borough at large”.

The figures show that between the two monitored periods (Feb to Oct 2021 and Feb to Oct 2022), the levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) increased by 26 per cent in the internal St Mary’s LTN area and by 14 per cent on the boundary roads. The equivalent figures for the borough as a whole were 25 per cent and 16 per cent.

Various aspects of the monitoring process itself can be called into question, but the two sets of figures indicate that the imposition of the trial LTN produced no improvement in air quality when measured against the borough at large.

Moreover pollution is very much worse where traffic has been displaced onto congestion hot spots such as Gaskin Road (+40 per cent) and Canonbury Lane / Square (+45 per cent).

Given the majority opposition among respondents consulted on the St Mary’s Church LTN scheme, evidenced elsewhere in the report, it is incumbent on the council to explain its justification, with particular respect to air quality, for making the scheme permanent.

HENRIETTA CURTIS, N1