Pollution is ‘taking 10 years off the lives of Londoners'

Londoners are having up to 10 years wiped off their lives by poor air quality, a leading academic warned today.

Professor Frank Kelly, an environmental health expert from King's College, London, stressed that an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people in the capital were dying early each year due to pollution.

"In the worst cases, they could be dying up to 10 years early," he said.

The small number of individuals suffering the largest loss of life, he added, were those with conditions such as respiratory or cardio-vascular problems. But thousands more were having months, or weeks knocked off their lives by pollution, such as nitrogen dioxide and particulates, blighting London.

Giving evidence to the Commons environmental audit committee, Professor Kelly called for action to clean up the capital's air particularly by cutting traffic.

London Mayor Boris Johnson, the Government and the boroughs had to act decisively to tackle pollution, he added, in the way the authorities had sought to combat obesity, smoking and alcohol abuse.

He said: "We need to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads by at least 20 to 30 per cent."

He added that taxes, new incentives and restrictions or changes to London's fleet of buses may be needed to improve air quality.

Mr Johnson today warned Londoners to prepare for extreme weather such as flooding and heatwaves. He said scientific evidence suggested the capital would face hotter, drier summers, wetter winters and rising river levels.