Air pollution is an “invisible killer” damaging the lives of people in the North East, an expert has warned ahead of Newcastle’s Clean Air Zone (CAZ) launching.
Monday will see new tolls levied for the first time on certain high-polluting vehicles coming into Newcastle city centre, under a scheme designed to slash illegal levels of emissions. While the charges, which will be as much as £50 per day for some vehicles, have proved controversial for some, a university boffin says the new restrictions are needed to combat what he says should be considered a global emergency.
Anil Namdeo, a professor of air quality management at Northumbria University, compared the toxic fume crisis to the lethal smog that enveloped London in the 1950s – and believes that if the emissions from modern vehicles were visible they would be treated with much greater concern. Calling air pollution the “invisible killer”, Prof Namdeo told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “Not many people know about the threats of air pollution because we cannot see it. In the 1950s when we had the problem of smog, people could see it coming out of vehicles and chimneys and knew it was a problem.
