Extension to London school air pollution programme proposed

Green Party London Assembly Member Caroline Russell has proposed that the Mayor extends the funding for schools to tackle poor air quality.

In her amendment to the Mayor’s budget Caroline Russell found £6 million to pay for air audits for the 203 primary and 79 secondary and colleges that haven’t received funding to tackle poor air quality.

Of the 450 schools situated in areas where air pollution exceeds legal limits, the Mayor has offered grants to audit the problem and make changes to 250 schools to help reduce the exposure to bad air. So far 50 schools have actually had the audits.

Caroline’s budget amendment proposes extending the programme of GLA-funded air quality audits to the remaining 282 colleges, primary and secondary schools in areas with the highest concentrations of nitrogen dioxide.
 
The City Hall Greens 2020-21 amendment to the Mayor’s budget contains measures to support schools to clean up the air that pupils, teachers and parents breathe, including £1 million for air pollution audits and £5 million for improvement measures.
 
This part of the budget amendment is funded using £5 million of the Mayor’s Capital Programme Reserve for 2020-21 and using £1 million from TfL’s business rates allocation reallocated to the Mayor’s budget and focused on prioritising air quality programmes. This requires TfL to de-prioritise £1 million of expenditure on road schemes in 2020-21.