TRAFFIC-POLLUTED air in parts of Bradford will remain at illegally toxic levels until at least 2021, new analysis of Government data shows.

Environmentalists are now calling for urgent action to tackle the problem.

The Friends of the Earth says Clean Air Zones - where high-polluting vehicles can be charged for entry - should be imposed on Bradford and 57 other areas of the country by next year at the latest.

Anne Schiffer, Friends of the Earth Leeds campaigner, said: “In Yorkshire and the Humber alone, over 2,500 people die early each year due to air pollution. The air we breathe is literally killing us.”

Air pollution can cause childhood asthma, cancer, strokes and heart attacks and accounts for an estimated 222 deaths in the district each year.

Diesel lorries and buses cause much of the pollution, according to experts.

EDITOR'S COMMENT: We need cleaner air but toxin charge on diesel cars must be a last resort

Bradford already has four long-standing congestion hotspots where air quality has reached illegal levels.

But the situation appears to be worsening, with the former Saltaire roundabout in the process of being added to the list and two further places - the Dudley Hill roundabout in Rooley Lane and the Harrogate Road-Killinghall Road junction in Undercliffe - under close watch.

Earlier this year, a team of volunteers from Baildon Friends of the Earth also monitored pollution levels at ten different sites across Baildon, Bingley and Shipley.

By far the highest levels of pollution they found were outside Shipley CE Primary School in Otley Road, Shipley, group member Glyn Turton said.

Levels of nitrogen dioxide there were found to be 51 micrograms per cubic metre, higher than the legal limit of 40 micrograms per cubic metre.

Professor Turton said: “There is, of course, a widespread problem but the problem outside this school is particularly acute.”

Pollution caused by traffic was already proving such a worry to parent Cathy Knamiller, whose five-year-old daughter Holly Robison is in Year One at the school, that the family nearly did not apply for a place there.

She said: “We did consider it when we considered school places, but this is our local community school.”

So instead, she spoke to head teacher Angela Smith and Baildon Friends of the Earth to see what they could all do to help tackle the issue.

She said one easy way for motorists to help was to turn off their engines if they were sat in queueing traffic.

And James Craig, a keen cyclist and Baildon Friends of the Earth member, said they also wanted to encourage more children to “walk, cycle and scoot to school”.

Today, to mark national Clean Air Day, pupils will be putting banners up on the school gates, urging people to use their bicycles more often.

Mrs Smith said children would also be doing a survey of the number and types of vehicles using the road, as part of a school project on air quality.

She said: “The reason they are doing this survey at lunchtime is that lunchtime is a real time of the day when we get a lot of traffic.

"Our Early Years is right next to the road, so it is about flagging up to people that there is a school here as well and there are children playing out, and it is a concern to us.

“We are also looking, at the moment, at how we can screen ourselves from the road a bit more.”

The Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is already imposing a London-style Clean Air Zone on Leeds and four other cities across the UK by 2020, which could see heavily-polluting commercial diesel vehicles charged a fee if they enter certain areas.

Bosses at Bradford Council are waiting to hear whether Bradford will be among a further tranche of more than 20 cities to have Clean Air Zones imposed on them.

Councillor Val Slater, executive member for health and wellbeing, said they were expecting to hear next month what the Government wanted to do.

She said: “We understand that the Government may be making some very firm proposals and we are waiting to see what they are so we can take action on that, but we are fully aware of the issues we have in Bradford and the implications for people’s health.”

But Friends of the Earth wants the Government to go much further, by imposing the zones on a total of 58 areas across the country by the end of 2018.

Defra declined an opportunity to comment.