1. Community
May 13, 2015

Air pollution is ruining London's views

By City Monitor Staff

Those of you with your heads buried in the political press may not have noticed, but UK air quality has taken a dive over the past month or so. 

Take a look at the photo above, taken on 10 April. From the photo’s vantage point, Hampstead Heath, you should be able to see Canary Wharf in high definition – here, it’s barely visible. 

And take this photo, where Blackfriars bridge is visible, but the area directly behind it is populated by creepy ghost buildings: 

Where has the Shard gone?

St Paul’s? Hello?

Content from our partners
The key role of heat network integration in creating one of London’s most sustainable buildings
The role of green bonds in financing the urban energy transition
The need to grow London's EV infrastructure at speed and scale

Luckily, it looks like action will be taken on pollution levels within the next year.  


On 29 April, the UK supreme court ordered the government to take action on the country’s pollution levels, which have been in breach of EU regulations for years and could well be causing early deaths from respiratory disease. Five judges unanimously ruled that the government must draw up a plan to bring pollution levels within EU maximums by the end of 2015.

In London, measures taken to improve air pollution under Boris Johnson’s mayoralty have been criticised for not going far enough by the London Assembly. In fact, in 2014 Johnson responded to news from scientists that NO2 levels in the capital were 11 times the EU maximum with: “B*ll*cks: ludicrous urban myth.” (He later accepted the scientists’ data was correct, and not, in fact, a myth.) So it’s possible that a change of mayor could improve air quality in the capital, too. 

Meanwhile, others have taken more direct action. On Sunday, air pollution protesters, concerned a new runway would make pollution worse, staged a “lie-in” at Heathrow’s terminal 5:

Let’s hope something changes – for the sake of our lungs, if not our skyline.

This article is from the CityMetric archive: some formatting and images may not be present.
Websites in our network