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The parents of an eight-year-old boy needing a lifesaving operation say they are moving to Wales to get away from air pollution in Bristol.

Steph Wardle and her husband Richard will be moving across the border to escape the problem which they believe is affecting their son's health.

Their son Cyrus "will not survive into adulthood" without having major surgery for his condition, aortic stenosis, which means that a valve in his heart does not close properly.

The family are planning on moving to Porthcawl next month, despite not having jobs lined up, to give their son "a chance to breathe clean, fresh air".

Mrs Wardle is one of hundreds of people that have signed an open letter to the Bristol mayor to demand that action is taken against the city's levels of air pollution, Bristol Live reports.

"We are moving to Porthcawl for my son’s health to give him a chance to breathe clean, fresh air," she said.

"If we moved to a Bristol suburb, we would have to drive because public transport is appalling and we would be contributing to the problem, so we decided to move away.

"At the moment he can function fine, as long as he does not exert himself, but it is going to put too much pressure on his heart, so he won’t survive into adulthood without an operation.

"He gets seen once a year by a consultant and they monitor his condition. If it deteriorates, they would have to operate sooner than they would like to.

"A little balloon needs to be inserted in the aorta but they want to wait until he has physically grown as much as possible because it will not grow along with him and his heart."

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Mrs Wardle believes that her son's condition could be linked to his exposure to air pollution before and after he was born.

The 47-year-old is hoping to get a job as a teaching assistant or a carer in Porthcawl but said that moving out of Bristol was more urgent than finding a job first.

She added: "We are all nervous about the move as we have good roots and friends in Bristol, and Cyrus was born here.

"It’s a great city but the air pollution is not getting any better any time soon.

"We are doing the right thing for us but that won’t solve the appalling air quality problems for the people left behind."

The city's council has said that it is committed to improving air quality as quickly as possible and intends to implement a clean air zone by March 2021 and sent out two proposals to the public earlier this summer.

But technical work shows that neither proposal would reduce the high nitrogen dioxide levels to legal limits across Bristol until 2028 at the earliest but Mrs Wardle said that her son couldn't wait that long.