'The air was so dangerous in my Birmingham postcode I ended up on life support'
Named only as Jenny, the 75-year-old woman said she 'never realised how dangerous the air was' until she was hospitalised with life-threatening pneumonia.
Traffic fumes and poor housing conditions were to blame for her deteriorating health, doctors told her at the time. Living next to the busiest motorway in Europe, she also found herself suffering regular asthma attacks just from stepping outside.
Read more: Couple who starved their dog told RSPCA inspectors she was 'given to them by drug dealers'
The retiree found her health drastically improved when she moved nearer to green spaces and away from the motorway.
Speaking as part of a new Health Equals campaign this week, she said: 'I never realised just how dangerous the air I was breathing every day really was, I used to live near Spaghetti Junction, and would suffer regular asthma attacks just from stepping outside my door.
"It wasn't until I ended up in hospital with pneumonia and on life support that doctors told me the traffic fumes and my poor housing conditions were to blame.
"Everyone deserves clean air – not just those lucky enough to live near green spaces or away from busy roads. My health improved dramatically after I moved and started walking in parks. But not everyone has that choice."
Her experience with air pollution comes as Health Equals, a coalition of 85 organisations, revealed World Health Organisation (WHO) air quality guidelines were breached in 35,000 neighbourhoods across Britain.
Its report also outlined all 506 schools in Birmingham were in neighbourhoods failing the guidelines, putting 290,000 children at risk of serious long term health problems, including heart disease and stroke.
The new findings are being released as part of Health Equals' Make Health Equal campaign, to highlight alarming health inequalities: where toxic air, alongside other issues including poor income, unstable jobs and unsafe homes, are contributing to an alarming 16-year gap in life expectancy across the UK.
Health Equals is calling for a cross-government strategy that prioritises action on these essential building blocks of health, to stop lives being cut short.
City environment boss Coun Majid Mahmood said: "Poor air quality is a major risk to public health, and that is why we are committed to improving the city's air through our clean air strategy.
'Data published in October 2023 showed that our work to address the air pollutant, nitrogen dioxide, is delivering results, with pollution levels in Birmingham city centre slashed by almost 40 per centr since 2016, driven in part by the introduction of the Clean Air Zone.
'Across the city, a dedicated air quality monitoring programme of potential 'hotspots' in Birmingham has found that all sites are within the annual mean air quality objective. This three year monitoring project concluded in 2024 and sought to identify any locations where concentrations of nitrogen dioxide might exceed the annual mean air quality objective. I am pleased to confirm our evidence suggests that outside of the city centre area, air quality concentrations are within legal limits.
'We also monitor particulate matter, both coarse and fine fractions (PM10 and PM2.5), and all of our sites continue to show compliance with legal limits set by Government. We will continue to work with Government to further drive down concentrations of fine particles as we know these are the largest risk to health and we have extended our monitoring network to this end.
'This is supported by our mission to install year-round air monitoring equipment in schools a key component in this. These monitors come in tandem with accompanying education resources and lesson plans helping to inspire a new generation of Clean Air champions. Our work in this area is underpinned further by projects like 'Car Free School Streets', which seeks to reduce emissions during rush hour, driven by readings from council monitoring data showing that the school gates are among the most polluted parts of the city.
'The school sensor programme has the co-benefit of providing monitoring data for fine particulate matter, recognised as a key pollutant in a range of adverse health outcomes such as heart disease, lung diseases and cancers.
'Furthermore, surplus revenues from the Clean Air Zone are feeding directly into our transport plan, enabling us to work in partnership with the West Midlands Combined Authority to support schemes related to active travel, improve public transport infrastructure, and manage demand in the city centre.
'Projects funded by Clean Air Zone revenues include a trial of hydrogen buses, upgrades to the University railway station and new stations on the Camp Hill line, as well as a number of projects within the Cross-City Bus scheme, the expansion of the Car Free School Streets programme, and development of the next phase of the Birmingham Cycle Revolution. Community grants for projects delivering against our priorities have also been provided through the Environment and Transport Neighbourhoods Fund (ETNF).
'Our work towards our clean air objectives continues with the recent launch of a consultation into the renewal of the city's Smoke Control Order, offering greater powers of enforcement against those who breach guidelines. This is just the latest step in our journey, which will not stop until we have achieved our objective of clean air for all residents.'
Have you been affected by this. We would like to hear from you. You can contact us by emailing us on stephanie.balloo@reachplc.com
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