Colmore professionals urged to abandon their cars to ease city pollution
A Birmingham company director is calling on workers in the city’s business district to abandon their cars for at least one day to help tackle high levels of pollution.
In a personalised letter sent to hundreds of businesses in the Colmore Business District, Paul Fielding, a Chartered Wealth Manager with Brewin Dolphin, has urged workers to participate in the first ever National Clean Air Day on Thursday, June 15.
Mr Fielding is the working group champion of Colmore Business Improvement District (BID) Accessible & Connected Working Group, which is responsible for tackling transportation and movement issues in and around the Colmore area.
Birmingham is one of the worst hit areas outside London for dangerous levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution with a recent study by Public Health England warning that air pollution was responsible for up to 900 deaths a year in the city.
In 2015 Birmingham was one of five cities – alongside Leeds, Nottingham, Derby and Southampton – ordered to introduce a clean air zone by 2020.
Colmore Business District BID is encouraging the 30,000 workers in the area to take part in National Clean Air Day, which will see a host of initiatives and projects at Birmingham schools, businesses and outdoor spaces, alongside the release of a new short video that will highlight the importance of clean air.
In his letter to Colmore BID businesses, Mr Fielding describes himself as ‘sceptical’ about initiatives such as Clean Air Day, but adds that ‘if we can do something to improve our own and our fellow employees’ health then we should at the very least explore it’.
Mr Fielding makes suggestions for how businesses can play their part in National Clean Air Day, such as encouraging employees to ditch their car for a day and reconsidering how personal items are delivered to offices.
“As an individual who works for a firm that picks up this letter a great deal of you will undoubtedly see the title, shudder and probably file this together with all the junk mail that is received that day,” writes Mr Fielding.
“What we are asking is, STOP, take a breath (you’ll see the irony in this soon) and consider what throwing this in the bin may actually mean to your employees’ health.
“Within the Colmore Business District there are approximately 630 businesses and 30,000 employees. Each of these businesses and a great deal of their employees will undoubtedly, in some way, contribute towards a problem that will affect a great number of people, Air Pollution.”
Anne Shaw, Assistant Director for Transportation and Connectivity, Birmingham City Council, said: “Air pollution is a serious public health issue affecting everyone who visits, lives and works in Birmingham and this means we all have a responsibility to help tackle it together.
“National Clean Air Day supports the wider work we are doing in Birmingham to encourage people to think about positive changes they can make to help improve air quality in the city, including their travel habits, and I am pleased that so many employers are on board in terms of helping to spread this message and achieve these objectives.”
The Colmore Row area was recently designated a Green Travel District (GTD) as part of a pilot project aimed at transforming Birmingham business life.
It is hoped the scheme will lead to a reduction in the use of the private car, which will drive economic, social and health benefits, and tackle air pollution across the city centre.
The GTD, which is described as ‘not anti-car, but pro-pedestrian’, will see investment focused on public transport, walking and cycling options and new options for freight deliveries and is a partnership between Colmore BID and the city council’s ‘Birmingham Connected’ Mobility Action Plan.
