Liverpool’s Green Party leader today launched his mayoral campaign by installing air pollution equipment in several city centre locations.
The small monitors are designed to measure the role of trees in improving air quality, and are situated in a number of important locations, including Victoria Street car park.
The initiative comes as a direct response to Liverpool City Council plans to build a new £5 million multi-storey car park on the site; plans which Cllr Tom Crone believes would result in the loss of numerous trees in the area.
Crone said: “I am here to highlight two of my campaign priorities, protecting green space, and tackling environmental problems such as air pollution.
“Air pollution causes an estimated 239 deaths per year in Liverpool but next to nothing is being done to reduce it. Indeed the current Mayor wants to get rid of these trees and build a multi-storey car park on the Victoria Street car park.
“This will see valuable trees lost from the city centre, and will encourage yet more traffic, making congestion and air pollution both worse. This is the wrong direction for a modern forward thinking city to be going.”