dying for breath

Air pollution takes seven or eight months off Britons' life expectancy. But for the 200,000 people most directly affected, the shortfall is two years.

"It is a national scandal that thousands of people are still dying from air pollution in the UK in 2011 - and the government is taking no responsibility for this," said Environmental Audit Committee chair Joan Walley MP. "It is often the poorest people in our cities who live near the busiest roads and breath in diesel fumes, dangerous chemicals and bits of tyre every day."

It is estimated that around 4,000 people died as a result of the Great Smog of London in 1952. That led to the introduction of the Clean Air Act in 1956. In 2008, 4,000 people died in London from air pollution and 30,000 died across the whole of the UK.