Tackle air pollution

Whether through making active travel safer and more accessible, ensuring better access to public transport, pushing for sensible planning, reducing emissions or in many other ways, Greens are at the forefront of tackling air pollution locally and nationally.

Anti-idling campaign

After over a month of back and forth, our co-chair Sam Peters has finally managed to get Surrey County Council to host a petition asking them to take action on idling!

Idling - which is leaving a vehicle engine running unnecessarily while stationary - generates around 150 balloons of exhaust fumes a minute, or more for larger vehicles like SUVs. These gases are of course bad for climate change - but can be devastating for human health, and particularly those of children, babies and people with existing respiratory problems.

Fumes leaving an exhaust pipe

It is estimated that air pollution causes up to 60,000 premature deaths in the UK every year, with the effects of exhaust fumes damage every cell in the body. Idling is in fact already against the law - but most councils still don't enforce this. Surrey County Council had consistently refused to take action on idling, telling Sam it was 'a matter for local councils' despite it being SCC that has authority over transport and parking.

Other councils have massively cut air pollution, especially around schools and densely populated areas, by enabling parking officers to ask idling drivers to switch off engines. They'd be able to give a £20 on-the-spot fine (but only for repeated refusals to switch off, after explaining why switching off benefits both the driver and everyone around them).

Sam has calculated that idling generates thousands of tonnes of exhaust fumes across Surrey per year - so even tackling a small fraction of them would be hugely beneficial to our air quality, as well as saving drivers money and cutting Surrey's transport emissions, which account for over 40% of its total emissions.

We have six months to reach 10,000 signatures for SCC to consider it - so please do sign and share with friends and family in Surrey who'd like to breathe cleaner air! The link is https://mycouncil.surreycc.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?Id=543.