On another day of high air pollution facing London new evidence from Stephen Knight AM, the Liberal Democrat London Assembly environment spokesman, reveals the lack of support given to schools located near to the pollution hotspots of London’s busiest roads.

Based on a survey of 935 London schools and nurseries that are situated within 150 metres of a road carrying more than 10,000 vehicles per day the survey reveals that just two per cent of schools are even aware of the airTEXT service which provides free daily air pollution forecasts for Greater London. This is despite the Mayor consistently claiming that airTEXT provides an adequate pollution alert service to vulnerable Londoners.

The results from the survey also reveal a further lack of awareness of the information and support services available to children at schools affected by high levels of air pollution that is provided through the Mayor’s Cleaner Air 4 Schools education programme.

Key findings of the survey also include:

• Only 5 per cent of schools were aware of the ‘Cleaner Air 4 Schools’ education programme in London
• Just one in 20 head headteachers reported receiving any information about air pollution in the last 12 months from either their local authority, Transport for London or the Greater London Authority.

Such a lack of awareness of the help and support available to schools is in complete contrast to the awareness amongst the schools that their pupils were affected by air pollution, with 80 per cent stating that they were concerned about the health effect of poor air quality on the children attending their school.

The report also calls for the Mayor to consider offering grants to improve the indoor air quality of London’s most polluted schools, so ensuring that all classrooms have access to adequate air filtration and ventilation systems.

Setting out why action is so necessary to protect school children from air pollution Stephen Knight said:

“At present only feeble steps are being taken by the Mayor to inform Londoners about air pollution. The Mayor’s claim that the airTEXT provides an adequate service to help vulnerable Londoners is totally demolished by the results of this survey.

“We should never forget that children are at great risk from air pollution because of their smaller lung capacity, and their height which means that they are often closer than adults to tail pipe exhaust emissions from vehicles.

“Of course there are numerous reasons for the current levels of high pollution, including dust being blown over from the Sahara, but the harsh reality is that these week’s exceptional factors are just exacerbating daily problem of high levels of pollution that exist everyday in many parts of London.”

NB  you can subscribe to the free airTEXT air quality alerts. For text message alerts, send “airtext” to 78070. For voicemail or email alerts, or for the smartphone app, visit the website at http://www.airtext.info