ClientEarth, a legal charity that has held the government to account on air quality, has won a series of legal victories in the High Court against DEFRA. The court has repeatedly found DEFRA’s plan of passing responsibility to local authorities to be insufficient and illegal. DEFRA had to produce a new plan to deal with pollution in 33 local authorities, including Portsmouth. The newly published plan has been strongly criticised by ClientEarth:

ClientEarth clean air lawyer Katie Nield said: “Today’s pitiful plan shows that the government’s strategy to tackle air pollution by passing the buck to local authorities is in tatters. It’s essential that the government takes action on a national scale.

“Amazingly, ministers have now ordered more plans, which means more delays. It shows a shocking lack of leadership on a key public health issue.

She added: “It’s absolutely staggering that only now, eight years after legal limits came into force, the true extent of the problem is being uncovered for large areas of the country. In the meantime, people in these areas have continued to be exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution.”

This is significant since ClientEarth has repeatedly defeated the govenment in court. Since they strongly criticized the new plan, DEFRA should be extremely worried. ClientEarth could take DEFRA back to court and are quite likely to win. For the sake of public health, the government should take stronger action, including decisive actions taken at a national scale.