A London prep school has spent tens of thousands on filters to combat pollution – but not all heads can pay for clean air

It is a bright spring morning in west London. There’s a light wind, the sky is blue, studded with puffed white clouds, and the air seems – for the capital at least – clear and fresh. It is not. Overhead heavy traffic snakes along the raised carriageway of the A40 Westway while at ground level a stream of buses, cars and lorries passes by ceaselessly.

Notting Hill Preparatory (NHP) school in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea is situated on a busy main road just a stone’s throw from the flyover. It may be one of the capital’s most fashionable private schools, but it is not immune from the blight of air pollution.

According to Greenpeace research, NHP is one of more than 2,000 schools in England and Wales, near busy roads, where children are exposed to illegal levels of damaging air pollution from diesel vehicles. Another piece of research recently showed that every London inhabitant is breathing air that exceeds global guidelines for one of the most toxic particles, PM2.5.

And last week the UK and five other countries were referred to the European court of justice – Europe’s highest court, which can impose multimillion-euro fines – for failing to tackle illegal levels of air pollution. Across Europe toxic air causes 400,000 early deaths.

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Dangerous pollution levels are a worry for all parents, but at NHP (where annual fees are £19,065 and former pupils include the children of Earl Spencer and of Richard Curtis and his wife, Emma Freud) the leadership team decided to invest tens of thousands of pounds on installing high-performance air filtration systems to improve the quality of the air.

To date, three reception classrooms have been fitted with a filter at a cost of £5,000 each, and the school plans to install similar systems in an additional six classrooms. “It’s a substantial investment,” admits John-Paul de Soissons, the school bursar and a former investment banker, but it’s an issue parents at the school care about deeply.

Jane Cameron, the headteacher, says: “Generally we’ve been aware of the need to look after children’s wellbeing in terms of pollution.” There is a clean air committee and the school encourages walk-to-school week, green screens (hedges that act as a pollution barrier), and “kiss-and-drop” drop-offs, with a member of staff at the school gate waiting to scoop up a child delivered by car – it can then move off promptly, reducing idling engines.

Then last year a little boy with a serious allergy joined the school and what had been a concern became more urgent. “It became apparent that the quality of air was an important issue,” says Cameron.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has launched ‘air quality audits’ at schools. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

The units, which look like plain white cupboards, are installed at a high level to stop children interfering with them. They hum gently throughout the day, drawing in air at one end that passes through a hi-tech filter and is expelled – cleansed – at the other.

Each classroom is fitted with a monitor to check the quality of the air inside; the monitor is connected to the local government equivalent which logs outside pollution. The difference is striking. According to Commercial Air Filtration (CAF), the company that fitted the systems, air pollution in the NHP classroom has been cut by 86%.

“Air pollution in classrooms across the capital regularly exceeds World Health Organisation air quality guidelines, and it’s great to see Notting Hill Prep address this,” says Christian Lickfett, CAF’s managing director

Children are known to be more vulnerable than adults to the harmful effects of air pollution, with exposure to dangerous particulates increasing the likelihood of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

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Lickfett says not every school has to spend thousands to improve air quality and that there is a solution to suit any budget, but with state schools struggling to provide even the basics of education – books, full curriculum, watertight building – few have money to spare.

Emma Dent Coad, Labour MP for Kensington, is acutely aware of poor air quality in the streets around NHP. She lost a quarter of her lung capacity after suffering pneumonia two years ago, which has left her with asthma, and she says the pollution is disgusting.

“I’ve lived in the borough nearly all my life and I’m sickened that we are seeing more bad air days. For children it’s absolutely appalling. But the way to deal with this is to lobby for clean air, rather than schools having to spend vast amounts of money on expensive filtration systems.”

Andrea Lee, senior campaigner with the environment law group ClientEarth, agrees: “It’s great if schools can afford it. But not all schools will have money to install and maintain air filters.

“We think that everybody has a right to breathe clean air. It’s not just a legal right, it’s a moral right. We know that parents are increasingly concerned. What’s really important to let people know is that this is not a hopeless situation. There are solutions.”

It is up to politicians to take action, she says. “Politicians know what they ought to be doing. They need to take urgent action to get the dirtiest vehicles out of our towns and cities and implement clean air zones where there are restrictions on vehicles that come in. It’s whether they are willing to take a stand and do it.”

In London Sadiq Khan, the mayor, has announced a series of measures to try to address the problem. He has extended a high pollution warning system to include schools, which will receive an alert every time pollution reach levels likely to pose an acute risk to health. He has also announced that the most polluted schools in London are to undergo a pollution audit and recommendations will follow to try to improve the problem.

Paul Morozzo, clean air campaigner at Greenpeace, says: “All children deserve clean air. It’s a sad fact that in London and other towns and cities across the UK, kids are being exposed to illegal levels of dangerous pollution.

“Many schools are trying their best to protect their pupils, by encouraging walking and cycling and regulating drop-offs. That’s to be encouraged and it will help to alleviate some of the risk. But if somehow every school had money to spend on air filters, kids would still be exposed at home, on their way to school and in the playground. There’s no getting away from it.

“In reality, schools can’t solve the air pollution crisis, or prevent children suffering from the health risks associated with polluted air. Illegal pollution has to be tackled by policymakers working to get diesel cars off our roads as fast as possible.”