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Sheffield’s Health and Wellbeing Board in support of action to improve air quality

Director of public health Gregg Fell
Director of public health Gregg Fell

Sheffield’s Health and Wellbeing Board strongly endorses the city’s current approach to air quality and the proposed steps to make the air cleaner as quickly as possible.

At its July meeting the Health and Wellbeing Board discussed Sheffield City Council’s December 2017 decision to carry out a Clean Air consultation and fully supports that the city has to do something now about poor air quality.

Dr. Tim Moorhead, Co-Chair of the Sheffield Health and Wellbeing Board and Chair of NHS Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group said: “Just as, many decades ago, we took significant steps to ensure clean drinking water we must now ensure the same level of attention is given to the air we breathe.

“I would like to see faster acceleration of the current plans and the city aiming for air that is safe to breathe, not just air that meets the EU legal levels. We know that poor air quality affects our children’s developing lungs for ever and this has to stop.”

Councillor George Lindars-Hammond, Co-Chair of the Sheffield Health and Wellbeing Board and Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care said: “The board fully supports the ambitions set out in the Air Quality Strategy, including the proposal for a Clean Air Zone. We are encouraging as many people as possible to respond to the consultation and to make their views known.”

Members of the Health and Wellbeing Board are asking staff who work in the organisations that make up the board to respond to the consultation. In addition, the organisations themselves will also be asked to contribute.

The organisations that make up the board are also significant employers in the city and will be considering what their individual role is around the transport fleet, the trips that are generated and the potential for shifts to cleaner and more sustainable forms of transport. All of these actions to improve air quality are aligned with our efforts to respond to the climate emergency.

Sheffield’s Clean Air Strategy can be found at http://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?AIId=16072

Membership information for Sheffield’s Health and Wellbeing Board can be found at http://democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/mgCommitteeDetails.aspx?ID=366

For more information please contact Deborah Varney, on 0114 205 3546 or email press@sheffield.gov.uk.