Mayor Joe Anderson has committed to reducing air pollution and making Liverpool a place where walking, cycling, electric vehicles and clean fuels will dominate, and from which polluting diesel traffic will be discouraged, to protect the health of Liverpool people.

The city council is already working on a number of initiatives to drive a reduction in air pollution, including:

• Reducing traffic congestion in key areas through the City Centre Connectivity Scheme
• Improving roads and walkways to encourage people to walk and cycle more
• Making changes to the council’s fleet to make them greener
• Working with the taxi trade to reduce emissions by phasing out dirtier engines
• Working with Merseytravel to put electric and hybrid buses on the most congested routes

Councillor James Noakes, Cabinet member for highways, transport and streetscene, said: “Liverpool’s a growing city and, as with other cities, we have high levels of traffic and it causes 70 percent of the pollution in the city.

“We know we have to lead by example, for example by changing our fleet of vehicles to be greener, encouraging hackney drivers to move over to less polluting vehicles and working with Merseytravel to deliver a better and cleaner bus service.

“We’re looking to reduce traffic congestion in key areas – like the Strand, new Islington and Bowring Park Road by the Rocket – and making improvements to roads and walk ways to encourage people to walk and cycle more. This is just the start of our programme.

“Air pollution crosses council borders, so we’re working with our partners across the city region and have also joined other cities as part of the UK 100 initiative to demand changes fight for those actions that can only be realistically implemented carried out by central government, such as a national scrappage scheme for diesel vehicles.

“We want Liverpool to have the cleanest air because we want people to live longer and poor air quality is impacting on the quality of life for residents.”

The Government believes six very specific lengths of A-roads in Liverpool may fail to meet the required Air Quality standard for Nitrogen Dioxide by 2020.

They are:

• Bowring Park
• Dale Street
• The Strand
• Islington
• Lime Street

A short list of actions is being created, outlining ways to improve air quality along these six routes which will then be shared with Defra for their approval. The study findings will be published here once we have the final DEFRA approvals.

Liverpool City Region Clean Air Study

Merseytravel, in partnership with Liverpool, Sefton, Knowsley, Wirral, St Helens and Halton Councils are undertaking a Clean Air Preliminary Options Study.

This study aims to produce a comprehensive, evidenced-based report that outlines the most effective and practical interventions that can be implemented locally to improve air quality.