Getty ImagesPaul Cosford, the medical director of Public Health England, toldThe comments came as PHE published a series of recommendations on how the government can improve air quality.
It describes air pollution as the biggest environmental threat to health in the UK and says there is strong evidence that air pollution causes the development of coronary heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease and lung cancer, and exacerbates asthma.
Prof Cosford said:"Transport and urban planners will need to work together with others involved in air pollution to ensure that new initiatives have a positive impact.
BBCRadioLondon Bring in school buses safer for kids & have less pollution!!
Been going on a while now this when are we going to act ClimateChange
Just ban private cars...and make public transport clean and irresistible. ClimateEmergency requires drastic action and a new way of thinking.
GeorgeMonbiot Too many leave engine running when stationary Welcome newer models that automatically stop engine when stationary and out of gear at least this is a help
I live in India and had a completely different thought about the developed nations.
Why do schools have the kiss & drop zone right next to the school gates? That space should be for healthy road users like bicycle parking.
Very sensible & important thing to do as these lungs are the weakest , the youngest and most vulnerable to the effects of pollution. Deleting Diesel cars also ASAP is imperative. The clue was always in the name DIEsel......
Double win. Less pollution and the little bastards will do some exercise and won't get so fat. Cheque pls!
I would love this to happen, then we can all live in our beautiful homes and actually park outside without constant abuse from pricky parents who have no clue how to use a car park and walk.
fietsprofessor CdffCycleCity even in Iamsterdam I see this as a problem that surely is worth the benefit. Even In Amsterdam
CORRECTION: NON-ZERO Emissions cars should be banned. 🌍
And teachers get to work how?
How about sorting out our public transport system and reduce people’s reliance on cars? And how about help to buy schemes for electric cars? climateaction airpollution
SaveWooltonWood What about the parents who have no choice to drive to school as they need to get to work after drop off?
.Thanks, too late for DerbyUK, photo is a PUBLIC park destroyed for a PRIVATE car park last week, in an area lacking in Open Space standards, next to childrens playground & primary school. DerbyUK is one of the Governments 6 designated Clean Air Zones loveparks air pollution
The way school mum's drive and park you could justify this move with or without the pollution controls to be fair
Utter nonsense. Most schools are in the middle of areas people live. How do you ban cars from whole swathes of towns? It’ll take vast investment in public transport and electrification to sort this.
It wont make our children smarter. A well funded decent education system will make them smarter. But i agree, they should walk to school too!
Depends where you live. School we could walk. Youngests nursery we can’t as there is fast country roads with no pavement. Drop him then drive down to school.
Yes, but we need to get rid of diesel buses. Large diesel vehicles are much more polluting than petrol cars.
Listen to all these moanatronic 5000's. Due to having to move house, our children are now in a school 7 miles away, which isn't walkable due to mainly country lanes. No local schools have space. People saying for moms to get a bus, what's the point in me paying tax etc 🙄
Lol god people are more dumb as time goes on.
Politically motivated Bollocks. GreenFraud DrainTheSwamp
So you going to relocate all schools.. so nowhere near any houses shops roads... some people don’t think before coming up with dumb ideas
Some of the biggest polluters are parents driving their kids half a mile to school and back everyday. Maybe try getting them to walk instead, far more effective at cutting emissions.
camcycle Cabs should be fined if engines are running in cab ranks
Parents are to blame to
Perhaps parents should send their children to their nearest school instead of driving to the one at the top of the league table! nolocaltrafficproblemsinschoolholiday
Low emission zone every city and town.
That makes perfect sense. There are two schools close to where I live. Ban cars near them and you close down half the city.
Ban everything, all problems solved, mainly because all problems are now banned 👍
That would also stop lazy parents parking outside the schools & blocking the roads up every day!
Ban cars near Supermarkets...
Let's face it there are Too many people living in such a Small Country. You can only do so much to alleviate the Problem.
So should child molesters and peadophiles
DanKaszeta It's the Sontarans, I tells ye!
Good idea, less fumes, less chaos, some exercise. 👍
Is the public officer trying to score points most of the schools are on major roads are you going to ask drives stop your engines and push the cars
Laudable, but not practical - at least in the short term. Where I live we have 3 primary schools all within about 10 mins walk from each other, and they are all opposite housing estates, one overlooks a main road.
Utter rubbish... Children go to high street ban cars there. Children go on school trips. Ban cars on motorways oh and van coaches...
We need the right to clean air enshrined in legislation. The Clean Air Bill put forward by GreenJennyJones does this. Then there would be no if or buts, local authorities and government would have to get on with it or face legal action.
Good luck with that. I think you'll find that whilst there are plenty that will virtue signal about 'saving the planet' there are few that are actually prepared to do anything about it. Environmentalism finally meets up with the reality of people's everyday lives.
But how would mummy show of her new status symbol if they did that ?it’s not just schools there criss crossing the boroughs for miles taking the kids to school. Compare the traffic in and out of school holidays!
You shouldn't ban them, just make the enforcement a bit safer for children!
They will just park at the closest point to where cars are banned.
Should of been done years & years ago! This is not 'breaking news' & it's appalling how little action is taken! Does GOVUK need a celebrity chef 2 make a documentary like with school meals!?!!? Shameful
Is it really that bad a health risk? There was more pollution a few decades ago.
GeorgeMonbiot I agree with the principle here which is to switch off your engine. But in our area, the county council has dropped funding for school buses, effectively adding lots more cars on the roads, into a very heavily congested area. The 2.5 mile walk not suitable for primary school.
Neill_14 The actual story is about sitting outside school with the engine running, not merely being near schools. I support this. You see them every morning and afternoon sitting in their cars, smartphone in hand, with the engine chugging away, presumably so the heater stays on. Ban it.
It's not just schools. We need bans in much wider public places. More pedestrianisation please!
I’ve never read something so stupid in all my life!! Whatever next, jus ban everything.
That will be the day, mothers don't walk their kids to school any more! They'd rather drive and park double up in front of my drive..
GeorgeMonbiot Good cause and a challenge. But the implementation considering our roadways and transport system is a big challenge that will take long term structural change.
GeorgeMonbiot I always see parents parking on the yellow hatching and keeping the engine running. Those kids are doomed.
GeorgeMonbiot JamesAbbott2013 As hedges are destroyed up and down the country public health chief recommends “redesigning cities so people aren’t so close to highly polluting roads by, for example using hedges to screen againstpollutants.Couldnt make this up! greenwash
they dont care for the People only their stupid ideas, when Championing change you need to bomsider all sides and you are not
GeorgeMonbiot WalkingToSchool - used to be a thing. Much better for the environment, improved air quality, less local congestion - and it’s an active form of travel to improve health. ClimateChange SchoolsStrike4Climate One for you to promote GretaThunberg?
How will the little darlings get to school? On school holidays there's hardly *any* traffic!
My son's daily commute is 100miles, I'd like to see the health chief get him there on time without a car! citytypes howtheotherhalflive
Have to open up all the schools in the villages again then, pay mums to not start work at 0915 etc
Another example of click bate...according to the story, he says no such thing. Article states 'It should be socially unacceptable to leave a car running near school gates.'
They should move School timings while they are at it so the school run doesn’t disrupt the people’s commute to work as it does now
Get kids walking to school again - at the rate parents ferry their children everywhere we will soon have the first Drive Thru schools- where they can drive the little darlings straight into the classroom and chuck them out right onto their desks!!
So what about all the people that live next to a school
Keep forgetting how good the info structure is in the uk 🙄take a look on any newish housing estate and see how there are all crammed in poor excess roads twisty stop starting. why wide and safe for everyone.
You should get out more........affiliated to failing Grayling by any chance....
Anything to reduce the traffic in the morning!
Are they joking,
That means they’ll have to walk to school, we can’t have that.
Common sense don’t you think 🤔
And what about the residents that live around schools who park outside their homes ?
How will your kids get to school? They don’t walk any more.
Not a bad idea, but impossible to implement. Just switch to electric
You can't ban cars driving down public roads, this is ludicrous but you could get parents who wait for their kids with the engine running, to turn it off.
Hmm....Another stupid comment from Big Brother as schools are localised to residential areas.
Very good decision. if they are not understand then drivers should be arrested.
Electric cars ok though?
Hhhm and they have just built a school next to the M25 in Rickmansworth - best close the motorway then 🙄
Parking near a school is fine as long as you park safely and don’t leave your bloody engine running. Oh and no dropping off bang outside the school gates (it’s unsafe for the kids) can’t people park and walk a bit.
LazyParents & ChelseaTractors
Wouldnt make much sense near our local school, we are literally 500 feet away from an oil refinery which kicks out sulphurous fumes all day everyday.
No problem. We can park. In random People's drives and walk the rest of the way.
We are slowly falling for this communist bollocks. Cultural Marxism delivers communist ideals by stealth. A little erosion of freedoms here, a little averaging down of society there. First they came for our cars around schools etc...Be afraid. You should be.
And farting cows. Ban them from the vicinity of schools, too! 🙄
The government slashed funding for school buses in our area so now all the kids go in separate cars or even taxis. Then when they get to school lack of funding means not enough teachers and reduced curriculum.
BBCRadioLondon Or, just a thought, stop being a nanny state and let people get on with their lives. Plenty of us went to schools back in the days of leaded fuel and no emissions regulations, guess what, we turned out fine.
I’ve never heard such bollocks.
Make the streets safe then
99% of schools run along a road so yeah, good luck with that. Morons.
BBCRadioLondon LittleNinjaUK here we go, what you've been asking for 👍👍👍👍
That’s not gonna work, especially in rural areas. How do we get to isolated schools? What about schools on main roads?
Wouldn't that mean the little darlings would have to walk to school and get wet on
Get real !
Sorry guys, if you moved house to be closer to a school, or if a school was built near to your house, you arent allowed a car anymore. We still want to charge you car tax, congestion charging and low emissions charging though. What a piss take.
Laurence’s HAINES school in Watford has a issue with cars and there is a ongoing problem..
Or we could just ask them to turn the engine off? Would it not have the same effect?
Yup, considering I live opposite one and they don't park, they just abandon, I would go with this 😁
Now tell me how the decline in the car industry is about brexit
I live near a school and have to put up with people sitting outside my house in their cars with the engine running.
Considering over half of the traffic is mums dropping off to school how does he plan to do that?... a pie in the sky comment.....
Ban buses, lorries, motor bikes, jet aircraft above the school, grow up, this can’t and will never happen
Hang on I hope your not suggesting making the little darlings actually walk down these new geeen avenues full of bees and flowers so they stop being fat little humans and cost us less money. Yeah ban the car.
I don't doubt this is a real issue but what is the rubbish about congestion charges for all! By all meals restrict vehicle access if necessary but congestion charges favour the rich (who afford to ignore the problem) and penalise the rest. It's socially divisive like the poll tax
What about schools in residential areas? Can the people who live near them not use there cars to get to work?
Ban cars.
This one will go down a treat on MumsnetTowers
Good. More areas need to be pedestrianised. Improve public transport. Trams and electric buses.
Absolutely. And buses. And trains. Oh and get rid of cyclists too. Nobody likes them.
Oh piss off already
Maybe kids should walk to school like I had to back in the day!
Pretty sure that's not how pollution works. The issue of inner city pollution literally extends above and beyond the school.
Nanny state again
Makes me laugh this kids were forced to que in clouds of diesel fumes for the bus in the old days
Sounds practical
Well I suppose coming with ideas justifies their jobs regardless of how stupid it is.
I'd go along with that . As well as causing harmful diseases because of their exhaust, cars may hit children crossing the street near schools because of their high speed.
Hasn't all this crap been said before, cheap talk.
'Paul Cosford, the medical director of Public Health England, told the Times it should be socially unacceptable to leave a car running near school gates.' The word banned doesn't figure in this article.
Should have been for years ..people turning up with their 4x4s!!!!
Hmmm. How does one get one’s child to school if one’s car is not allowed near said school? I note also that Mr Cosford is 55, so he doesn’t have this particular problem does he....
Ban the school run. That should solve most of the problem. Yes! In my day you had to walk to school, even it was as far as around the corner.
So you put down your kids name for the school next door they don’t get in & they end being put in a school across town! That’s what happens here you muppet, how the hell are kids s”posed to get to school especially in rural counties.
And what if a school backs onto a busy main road?
How will the kids get to school if there parent's cant park right outside the gates 🤔 DidntHappenInMyDay
Useless debate. Impose hybrid cars to manufacturers. Should have been done 10 years ago.
Does the wind not blow pollution around making this a completely pointless idea? I say we ban the wind!
What about those parents and guardians with disabilities who need cars to take their kids to school? Sod 'em? Banning cars from schools is a raindrop in an ocean when air pollution is concerned
The Media should be banned in most places.
that seems to be an unreasonable solution
Banning chip shops near schools would have better effects. Little fatties waddling around every school.
And children are supposed to walk, in freezing weather, driving rain, fog to find their parents? This person is a fool! 👫👬👭 SaveTheChildren
Pathetic
but the mr. chief can drive his car around schools. bla bla bla