The UK is to be taken to court for failing to tackle excessive air pollution.
Legal proceedings have been launched by the European Commission, having warned Britain last May that it was facing “immediate enforcement action”.
That warning resulted from a Supreme Court decision that the UK was failing in its legal duty to protect people from nitrogen dioxide and other air-borne contaminants. Most nitrogen dioxide originates in traffic fumes.
If Britain fails to take action to reduce levels of carcinogenic diesel fumes, it risks a legal process which could demand hundreds of millions in fines.
Air pollution causes heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and respiratory illness. Some 29,000 people in the UK die every year from conditions resulting from polluted air.
Excesses have been regularly noted in 16 UK areas - Greater London, the West Midlands, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Teesside, the Potteries, Hull, Southampton, Glasgow, the East, the South East, the East Midlands, Merseyside, Yorkshire & Humberside, the West Midlands, and the North East.
The Government has admitted it will not be able to reduce level to the acceptable amount until after 2015. In London, it said the limit could not be reached until 2025.
The Commission said the original deadline of 2010 was extended by five years for countries which had a credible plan to meet air quality standards.
“The UK has not presented any such plan for the zones in question,” it reported.
Several other EU members, including France, Sweden, Denmark and Greece have also exceeded the levels.
