Air pollution: putting people at the heart of the issues Dr Tim Chatterton considers the theory that the root causes of air pollution are social, not just technological. I t has been over two decades since the UK Environment Act 1995 and the European Air Quality Framework Directive (1996/62/EC) led to the establishment of air quality management (AQM) processes in the UK. AQM is understood here to differ from air pollution control insomuch as it focuses on achieving ambient pollution concentrations as opposed to emission limits. Eleven years have now passed since the UK comprehensively failed to achieve its own air quality objectives for nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), and a further fve since we failed to comply with the European Limit Value for NO 2 . Despite the Government’s insistence that only fve Clean Air Zones (and an Ultra Low Emission Zone in London) are required, over 60 per cent of Local Authorities in the UK have one or more Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) declared and the ‘stack’ of effective Air Quality Action Plans (i.e. those that have directly led to the ability to revoke an AQMA) is very slim indeed 1 . The fact that air pollution seems to have only achieved the media and political profle it currently receives following threats of fnes by the EU (and thanks to a great deal of work by lawyers ClientEarth), rather than the failure to comply with our own UK Air Quality Objectives in 2005, does not bode well for strong action post-Brexit. However, the recent High Court ruling demanding compliance “by the soonest date possible” may not be a good thing, particularly in the context of achieving a wider set of co-benefts which may require a more considered approach to maximise. This article argues that the AQM approach in the UK, but also more widely, has been fawed due to a failure to properly account for people as both the fundamental causes, and potential solutions to, the problem of air pollution. For the purposes of this article, the focus is placed primarily on transport related pollution, but this approach could be applied to other sources. © Unsplash | Pexels CASE STUDY CASE STUDY