IMMEDIATE action must be taken to tackle pollution problems in Southampton, the UK’s highest court has ruled.

Campaigners have welcomed the Supreme Court’s “historic” decision to order the Government to produce new plans to reduce air pollution.

The ruling was the climax of a five-year legal battle by environment group Client- Earth over the UK’s “admitted and continuing”

failure to secure compliance in certain zones with limits set under the Air Quality Directive.

The court announced that air quality plans to comply with EU limits on nitrogen dioxide must be submitted to the European Commission no later than December 31 this year. As previously reported by the Daily Echo, shock figures from Public Health England have shown that the percentage of adult deaths in Southampton due to air pollution in 2011 was 6.3 per cent – the highest in the south-east.

And there are ten air quality management areas (AQMAs) in the city where nitrogen dioxide emissions are at their worst, including Town Quay, Millbrook and Bevois Valley Road.

Keith Taylor, Green MEP for South East England, said: “Today’s judgement is a consequence of the Govern-ment ignoring health experts, campaigners and the EU to the detriment of people’s health.

“There must now be real ambition and determination to solve the source of the problem. We should be looking at Paris’s good practice such as free public transport in towns and cities on days of high pollution and prohibiting heavy polluting diesel vehicles from city centres.”

Southampton City Council has said it is aiming to encourage more residents to use public transport, share school runs, and is attempting to cut the number of heavy goods vehicles on the city’s roads.

After the Supreme Court ruling a spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “Work is already under way on revised plans to meet EU targets on nitrogen dioxide as soon as possible.”