I'm looking at data supplied by DEFRA which is freely available and that data also confirms that the air in London is good overall and certainly is the case in the areas that TFL are proposing the £12.50 a day tax on vehicles do not meet the requirements.
Looking at DEFRA website map, 3 monitoring sites that caught my eye as having higher readings are Lavender Hill, the monitoring station is located right next door to a Nandos and what looks like the kitchen window, remember readings in kitchens or places that use gas for cooking/heating exhibit far higher readings into the yellow zones for air quality.
The next one I looked at was Lambeth Bondway, again monitoring station is locate close to a LUL vent stack and also Wandsworth bus station, both are sources of higher pollution and thus contributing to the higher than average readings.
The next one is on Marylebone Road, again by a LUL vent shaft and also Baker Street LUL station.
I accept that the reading that "the fuckwit on YT" did are not conducted in an ideal manner and are not "normalised" etc but the statistics and probability that the cheap meter he was using being so far out of whack in the different locations that he took readings in, is so low that you have a far higher chance of being struck by lightening, not one but twice. Hell he stood next to the DEFRA station at Ikea on the NCR and showed you his reading and the DEFRA's reading, very close they were.
I think it is very dangerous to label all YT video makers as fuckwits etc just because they hold a differing viewpoint to your own, hell, we have members from our forums both here and EEV blog who also have YT channels and I also watch them. So loads of YT video makers take to using the platform because the main stream media will not cover the topics, the same as they will not attempt to hold our political leaders to account and just allow them to carry on doing just what they want.
I did say in another post, that some of the DEFRA site readings that appeared to be higher than others, and steps could be taken to improve the situation, and doing some very simple research of my own, I have identified why it is that the 3 examples above consistently gave higher readings then others in the area. I therefore think that what I said before about London air becoming much cleaner since the industrial sites have almost disappeared and tailpipe emissions are getting cleaner with the introduction of not only the EURO engines but also most of the really old inefficient cars have largely been removed from our roads through them dying of old age and being scrapped combined with the UK scrappage schemes we used to run.
I tend to go by what I can see for myself, and with my lifelong battle with chronic asthma suddenly coming to an end and that end just happened to coincide with what I said before re, retail parks etc, so I can see, and feel it for myself, I don't someone from City Hall telling me I can't believe my own experiences.
TFL have been asked repeatedly for the data to support the case for ULEZ expansion and repeatedly, they have so far failed to show it. DEFRA's own data also shows other results for each site, quarterly and yearly etc, and they show the air quality to be good and using the coloured table I posted the other day, almost entirely in the green zone which means zero risk to even the most vulnerable people from being outside in the air.
I don't need to study books on how understand data and analyse it, when the Governments own ministry are already doing it.
So once more, if someone can show evidence that the the figures do indeed show that the air quality is dangerous, I'll look at it, my mind is open and unlike the Iron Lady, I will turn if the evidence shows me conclusively that my beliefs are wrong. Everybody is entitled to change their mind, including that Steel fellow about 5G and LED drivers, but I doubt that he would because he loves the attention he was getting
