The video you can’t afford to miss

It is no exaggeration to say that every week there is another report on the dreadful quality of the air in London and its suburbs. There have been plenty of instances of poor air quality recorded in the London Borough of Sutton.

At a recent meeting of Get Sutton Cycling, a conversation led us to two questions.

First, could cycling and improved local cycling infrastructure contribute to improving air quality?

And second, do our local councillors – who are the people we must rely on to do something about our air – have cycling in mind when they consider action on pollution?

To get our local politicians thinking, a group decided to make a short and hard-hitting video with the facts – all of them sourced – about how bad air pollution is locally and how an increase in cycling provision would help.

We found plenty to film to show how bad things are. We also found a few examples locally and in other parts of the country to show how good things could be.

Watch the video. If you feel you can, share it with the people who can make a difference.

The video is available here.

The sources for all the statistics used in the video are available here.

What happened next?

In October 2017 we wrote to all fifty-four borough councillors to let them know about our video, and to ensure they were aware of the issue. A few councillors replied, and you can read what they had to say in ‘Air Pollution video – what happened next? (Part 1)‘. We report on what was effectively the response from Sutton Council (Liberal Democrat administration), received January 2018, in ‘Air Pollution video – what happened next? (Part 2)‘.