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The law firm said draft plans published in early May contained “major flaws” and they had written to the Environment Department calling for improvements.

Defra has refused, prompting the legal firm to take the government back to the High Court, the lawyers said.

The government was forced to publish the draft plans to tackle illegal levels of health-harming pollutant nitrogen dioxide after the courts ruled previous efforts were not sufficient.


“We have been looking at the fine detail of the draft air quality plans published by the government,” said ClientEarth chief executive James Thornton.”We have found some major flaws. The law requires the final plan to bring air pollution down to legal levels in the shortest time possible.

These flaws seriously jeopardise that timetable. “These are plans for more plans, what we need are plans for action,” he said.

“It is disgraceful that this government has had to be dragged back to court so many times over for failing to tackle illegal and unsafe air pollution that’s plaguing our streets,” said Areeba Hamid, clean air campaigner, Greenpeace.

“Our air has broken legal limits for pollution every year since 2010, and yet the government is still not acting to protect the public from this crisis,” Hamid said. “By delaying action to tackle air pollution over and over again the government is putting people’s lives at risk, and the voting public will expect better.”

Read more: The UK government’s attitude to air pollution stinks; UK’s plan to clean up its air is still inadequate, critics say