Your report highlighting how the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) has improved London’s air quality gives reassurance to those who believe that air pollution is a hidden killer (Dramatic fall in London’s levels of deadly pollutants after Ulez expansion, 7 March). People in public life who take action in light of heavy criticism to improve our environment, like Sadiq Khan, should be congratulated. Unfortunately, the current prime minister and his deputy, Angela Rayner, at the time publicly criticised Khan for implementing Ulez, blaming it for the loss of a byelection that year.
Your article referred to the report published by the Greater London Authority “with findings extensively reviewed by an independent advisory group of experts”, which said “Ulez had had a positive impact and that London’s air quality had improved”.
Perhaps a public apology from Keir Starmer and his deputy for criticising the mayor would be welcome. Their recognition of Khan’s courage in implementing a policy that works and improves health would help restore faith in public life.
Peter Walker
Wimbledon, London
• Sadiq Khan should be congratulated for his determined efforts to improve London’s air quality, as he has also shown the way for his far less courageous counterparts in other cities.
The greatly improved air quality in London will not just benefit adults. There is preliminary, but worrying, data that links in-utero exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) to adverse outcomes in children including reduced IQ, depression, anxiety, ADHD and antisocial behaviour. PAHs are a combustion product generated by smoking, wood‑burning stoves and diesel, but for those women who do not smoke in pregnancy and who are not exposed to wood-burning stoves, diesel exhaust becomes a significant source.
One has to wonder whether the epidemic of mental health disorders afflicting British schoolchildren is linked, at least in part, to the fact that diesel vehicles as a percentage of new car sales rocketed from less than 10% in the 1990s to more than 50% by 2015.
Dr Robin Russell-Jones
Marlow, Buckinghamshire
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