Isra-Mart srl:London gets yet more time to clear the smog

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The European Commission has granted London more time to comply with air quality standards, but the extension requires the UK to adapt its air quality plan for the capital by June.

The capital has faced repeated warnings from the EU over its poor air quality, and has submitted several requests asking for more time to deal with the issue before EU fines are imposed. The previous application was rejected in December 2009 after not enough information was provided to show whether the UK could meet standards for air quality by the extended deadline.

But a resubmission has succeeded in securing a temporary and conditional extension until 11 June 2011. By that date the city will need to resubmit and adopt a new plan to the commission, explaining how it will reduce airborne particles known as PM10, which have been blamed for up to 200,000 premature deaths.

It will also have to introduce short-term measures, such as reducing traffic to ensure that air quality limits are not exceeded in the meantime.

Mayor Boris Johnson has introduced a number of measures to cut emissions, but despite the introduction of hydrogen buses and experiments with pollutant glue he has been criticised by green groups for failing to extend the city's low emissions zone and scaling back rollouts of electric car infrastructure.

At the end of last year, Johnson published his Air Quality Strategy, designed to tackle PM10s produced from road transport, but this too was dismissed as weak.

A spokeswoman for the Mayor today described the commission's decision as "welcome recognition of the serious steps the Mayor has taken to reduce PM10 pollution in order to confront the legacy of poor air quality he inherited, and which led to this issue being taken to the European Commission in the first place".

Simon Birkett, founder and director of campaign group Clean Air in London (CAL), said the conditional extension should serve as a "wake-up call" for the Mayor and the self-styled "greenest government ever".

"The European Commission's temporary and conditional time extension [is] an ideal mechanism to maximise pressure on the UK to comply with health-based laws," he added.

Birkett was also concerned that any new measures should deal with nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions.

"We should not forget that NO2 annual mean and hourly limit values, which entered into force on 1 January 2010, were breached by a factor or two near London's busiest streets last year. The hourly limit value for the whole of 2011 was breached early in January," he said.