The Invisible Killer on Our Streets Week In Week Out

There are millions of vehicles on our roads every day.

My children are breathing this in, I'm breathing this in.

Tonight, we speak to those living on the UK's most polluted

Some lorries going past, you can feel the room shake.

I wish they'd flatten it and give us somewhere else to go.

We find out the pollution levels they're living with.

We take one rather unconventional car out for a test drive.

And we ask what needs to be done to remove a hidden danger

This is a public health crisis and we need to act now.

It's 8am and rush hour on a cold January morning.

For families living on this street, it's the start of another day.

Daisy, get your boots on please. But some lows here are far from normal.

This is the most polluted street in the UK outside London.

The pollution from traffic here is regularly breaking legal limits.

I've lived here for nearly 40 years, and the traffic, every year, you can

see it getting worse and worse and worse.

It's two weeks into 2017, and Hafodyrynys Road near Crumlin

is about to use up its entire air pollution limit for the year.

You don't want your children growing up being poorly.

You want them to be able to go out front door and not be

And that's just not happening at moment.

The poor quality air, dust and noise from traffic on this

road is something people living here have long been used to.

Neil's wife Dawn has lived here all her life.

I find now it's the air isn't so clear as what it used to be.

Six doors up, Amanda Jones has tried to shut out the problem.

We keep window open just to let a bit of air circulate.

The problem with doing that is that you end up with black

It's all the exhaust fumes, as you can see,

Traffic pollution isn't just a problem here: it's something

health professionals say everyone should be concerned about.

I'm meeting Huw Brunt from Public Health Wales.

Air pollution is something that affects everybody.

Smoking is probably the number one public health priority - air

pollution probably comes second to that, actually.

If you talk about obesity, inactivity and alcohol,

they come, actually, behind air pollution.

Here in Wales, air pollution contributes

Across Wales to date, more than 40 of these have been

declared - including in Crumlin, Mountain Ash, Cardiff and Newport.

And just this year, another has been declared in Merthyr Tydfil.

One of these areas is Hafod in Swansea.

It's one of five areas in Wales where traffic pollution is so bad

I've come to meet some of the people living and working

Some days you have the rush hour traffic, school traffic,

but its constant traffic nearly all the time.

Even from the middle of the night, it's traffic.

What impact does the traffic have on them?

It does affect them a little bit with their chests and that.

I find with the traffic, sometimes it's the safety of how

much traffic is there when they want to go out and play.

It's hard work crossing the road during the day, mind.

You can see now, it's absolutely shocking, isn't it?

Chris Morris works for a florist on Neath Road,

Oh, I never open the windows during the day.

Because there's so much traffic outside, all my clothes

would be smelling of petrol and everything, so no.

It's got to have an effect in some shape or form,

Is it going to affect my children's health?

Such a busy road and such an immense volume of traffic

And football day, it's absolutely atrocious.

Something should be done, something to ease the volume,

Just changing the tube for you, for the traffic.

Around the corner, equipment is being checked by the council

The Neath Road is one of the early areas we started measuring in,

due to the high volume of traffic and residential exposure

Nitrogen dioxide is what we're looking for.

So, we're looking for the products of combustion, secondary nitrogen

dioxide to do with the road traffic, so basically vehicle exhausts.

For people living in Hafod, Tom and his colleagues

Monitors like this are becoming a common feature.

Down the bottom of the road, can you see?

That's to count the pollution, right.

I've got asthma, and it don't help, do it?

Over the years, I've seen everybody growing up.

Gaynor Omar lives on the same road and has run this

I've been on this main road for 38 years, and I've seen

Me myself, I haven't experienced ill health,

It's cars coming into the area to go to their destination -

According to health experts, it isn't just smoke and dirt coming

from exhausts that's causing an issue.

There's a far more worrying hidden problem.

The air pollution we're talking about from a public health

perspective is the air pollution that you can't see: Nitrogen

dioxide, the main source of which is diesel cars.

And particulates, those fine particulates that you can breathe

In the short-term, we're talking about eyes, nose and throat

Long term, more serious consequences - on the heart, on lungs,

Traffic pollution on Hafodyrynys Road is recorded by this monitor.

Just a week after we started filming in January, the road

breached its legal pollution limit for the whole year.

Neil and Dawn's lives are spent indoors.

They spend most of their time on the ground floor

It's easier to breathe down here than what it is upstairs.

Dawn is disabled, and Neil's her main carer.

In the 70 years Dawn's lived here, she's seen a lot of changes.

And me mam, when she was small, she used to play

Dawn remembers Crumlin's industrial past, which brought

When the pits were here, we had coal fires and all that.

There was a lot of smoke here but nothing like it is now.

It seems to stay outside, it doesn't go up. You know.

68-year-old Dawn has Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease This

This inhaler I take twice a day for the emphysema.

And this one I take this twice a day, and I have

this one for in between, when I'm doing things.

Poor air quality outside her front door makes leaving the house

When I go out the front, all the fumes and everything,

Sometimes, we feel like prisoners here.

The poor-quality air is also something that's

She's concerned that it might be having an effect

My children are breathing this in, I'm breathing this in.

Daisy doesn't seem too affected, but I've noticed with AJ,

AJ does get quite chesty to point where he coughs a lot,

it takes him a lot longer to get over.

On the bed we have a duvet, and we prop that up on the bed

so he can be elevated, so he's not lying flat.

He coughs so much, he is sick, and I don't

So many nights, I'm on there with him.

His bed is actually quite near the window, and so you do get

the dust coming down, and I don't think that helps.

He has been given an inhaler for when he's really bad

I want him to be healthy, to be able to go out and play

It makes you feel incompetent as a parent, sometimes.

There will be a lot over vehicles. It now and confined.

In the valley, paediatric respiratory consultant Iolo Doull

deals with the effects of air pollution on children's lungs.

As an individual, you won't be able to say, ah, this child was exposed

to lots of air pollution, this one wasn't.

But on average, you will see, during the first few years of life,

they are more likely to cough, they're more likely to wheeze,

but most importantly - their lung development will be slower.

Back in Swansea, Hayley is also worried about the impact

pollution may be having on her family's health.

Do you notice anything about the fumes from the cars?

My husband and I are both asthmatic, and that does affect you,

especially when there's been high traffic, both of us need to start

So, has anybody spoken to you generally about

My daughter, took her to the doctor's recently,

and her chest was bad, and the doctor just put it down

to it being winter time and she was prone to having

We showed Iolo some of the footage we filmed with the families.

The evidence that it causes asthma is less clear-cut.

Certainly, it can precipitate asthma attacks if people have it.

And then I think the long-term effects, we're still learning about.

If you think that you could do that with your finger,

What can people do who live on Hafodyrynys?

What can they do to stop or try and prevent things happening?

The options are very limited, aren't they?

Because apart from moving house, what do you do?

For families living on Wales' busiest roads, it's not just the bad

Noise is also a major issue. It's now 20 to five,

so as you can see the traffic is now starting to become bumper-to-bumper,

so in another ten, 15 minutes, it literally will be stopped,

For Amanda Jones, the noise and vibration from heavy lorries

I love my house, and I absolutely love where I live.

It's just a shame that the road is busy...

It does affect every aspect of your life. Some people are more sensitive

to noise and can't sleep. As you see, it's relatively quiet,

can't really hear the traffic. More than 200,000 people in Wales

are exposed at night to road noise exceeding

World Health Organisation So, how bad is the noise

on Wales' most polluted road? The World Health Organisation says

noise levels above 55 decibels are increasingly dangerous

for public health. Average levels on Hafodyrynys

Road are 75 decibels. Huw Morgan chairs the Welsh

Pollution Expert Panel. He's using a monitor to record

an accurate sound level. We're in the upper-70s most

of the time here at the moment. It would be quite difficult

to sleep upstairs here. It would be very difficult to sleep

with the window open. Noise does have its own public

health impact - very serious It increases the risk of heart

attacks, cardiovascular disease. You might not see that effect

if someone's only been living there a few months,

but certainly over the long term, it has a very marked

effect on people's health, in many cases, additional

to air quality impacts, Some residents on Hafodyrnys Road

say the noise has become Because of Dawn's disability,

she now sleeps in a room on their first floor,

and lorries pass just I put ear plugs in, but it don't

make a lot of difference. And some lorries going past,

you can feel the room shake. As you can hear on the road now,

this is a quiet time of the day, so you can imagine what it's

like at rush hour. It wakes me up at half four,

five every morning, you know. Huw pops in to see Neil and Dawn,

to find out just how noisy it is. Outside, the background

level's over 70. Every time a vehicle goes past,

particularly a larger vehicle outside, that means a big increase

on the background level in here. And that is the kind of thing that

will just unsettle you. World Health Organisation guidelines

say indoor noise levels shouldn't be Deanna and Andrew's house has been

up for sale since April last year. They say they want to move

away for a quieter life, but they're struggling

to get interest. It's a lovely house, pity people

can't see beyond the road. People don't want to live here,

despite the fact they're lovely houses, nice sizes,

garden's like a different world, people do not see beyond this

road, which is a shame. According to current law,

Caerphilly Council should have produced an action plan

for Hafodyrynys Road by May 2015. Almost two years after the deadline,

this plan still isn't in place. However, the Welsh Government has

told us that it has 'received assurances' that it will be

by the end of this month. In some other pollution hotspots

in Wales, including in Swansea, councils are already working

to reduce levels of pollution. We're developing this prediction

system to enable drivers to be warned via messaging screens that

there's poor air quality being predicted, or congestion

in the traffic, and trying to educate drivers to change

their route, take a different route. The council hopes 10%

of drivers will pay attention, but is pushing traffic to other

areas the answer? Are you tackling the symptom of

the problems rather than the cause? Yes, that's always a possibility

and a likely occurrence as well. Making sure we're not shifting

the problem somewhere else. There are other measures,

like increasing cycling routes, the buses, looking

at the bus routes. Under current law, councils only

have to identify pollution hotspots They are not required to actually

bring pollution levels down. They're also encouraged to draw up

wider air quality strategies. We asked all 22 local authorities

in Wales if they've done So, really, in terms of statutory

responsibility, we're looking There, sadly, the

statutory powers stop. Certainly, over the past decade,

what's becoming increasingly obvious And we have, I think,

misled people by thinking that it's They don't live in that hot spot,

so it doesn't really matter. Clearly, there is a broad

air quality problem. The Welsh Local Government

Association said that despite 'severe cuts' in budgets,

air quality management 'remains They also said the onus for reducing

air pollution levels does not solely rest with them,

and that consumers, industry and governments

all have a role to play. Pollution isn't just

a problem for Wales. Across the world, it's becoming

an increasing concern, and it's something cities

across Europe are waking up to. In London, new mayor Sadiq Khan

has doubled spending on the problem to ?875m,

bringing in electric buses, more charging points for electric cars,

and trying to get older diesel cars You're covered in, like, oily

grease, when you wipe your face, but you do see a lot of people

walking up here with masks, so obviously, there is some

impact on all of us. Whenever you cough or sneeze,

you know you've had some horrible black dust in you,

so I think it's pretty shocking. I'm from Scotland, where we actually

have clean air, so there's Andrea Lee works for

ClientEarth, which campaigns She's taking us to measure

pollution levels on some It's measuring what we call PM 2.5 -

very fine particles that are less The mayor is also introducing

an Ultra-Low Emission Zone which will charge the worst

polluting diesel vehicles Low-emission zones can be a very

good tool for trying to target the dirtier,

more polluting vehicles. I caught up

with Mr Khan last month, charge that some diesel drivers

will have to pay when they enter We're not doing anything along

these lines in Wales. Should we be, and what's your

message to the Welsh Government? Well, I'm the Mayor

of London, so let me tell you the context in London -

over 9000 Londoners die here There are children in London whose

lungs are underdeveloped We've got to take action

because inaction won't lead to an improvement

of the air in London. So, can we replicate some of what's

been done in London here in Wales? I got behind the wheel

to put one to the test. of the speed I'm driving

at because it tells you how economically you're being in terms

of the miles that you're doing. I can see the miles counting down,

which gives you a bit of anxiety. you want to make sure you can get

where you're going to and don't run out of miles.

I'm picking up Huw Morgan in Swansea.

The council here has some electric vans, too.

They've been fine for normal council light van work,

where you're doing of journeys of half a mile to a mile, and charge

up over lunch and carry on, it works out all right.

Yes, which is exactly what diesels are worst at.

This is a challenge for an electric vehicle.

Swansea, like many welsh towns, is a hilly place.

And we have struggled when we've piloted electric buses.

What does Huw think about the idea of banning diesel cars in Swansea,

or charging drivers to come into particular areas of the city?

I think we're at a time now where we've got to look

at keeping diesels out of some very specific areas.

We took our electric van around 150 miles of South Wales' roads.

It seemed to cope quite well with cities, but motorways and hills

Where driving downhill at the moment, and the car is building up a

good speed. Going uphill is harder. We've been charging it for an hour,

we're on 45 miles now, so fingers crossed, that will be

enough to get us back to Cardiff. The technology may not quite be

there yet, but we did make it back. are meeting with their local

councillor to discuss ideas for We've got this problem

of the pollution, and it's We've talked about a bypass,

we've talked about electric buses, banning diesel cars,

HGVs, one-way system. We've got all the causes

but what needs to be done, One of the residents comes up

with a possible suggestion: Caerphilly council should step in,

and buy their houses. Compulsory purchase

is a drastic solution. The problem of the pollution's not

going away so what they could Whatever the solution is,

it's going to cost money, Demolishing the 23 houses on this

side of Hafodyrynys Road sounds But around half of home owners

in these houses have told us I would be more than happy for them

to say, we'll compulsorily As long as it was a decent

price and I could buy That's the only way

I could see working. I can't see any other ideas actually

panning out unfortunately. I want to get from

here, but how can I? I can't get another

mortgage at my age. I wish they'd flatten it and give us

somewhere else to go. We asked Caerphilly Council

for an interview but they refused. In a statement, they said

they "fully recognise" that there are air quality problems

here on Hafodyrynys Road, and that this is down

to the high volume of traffic, and the fact it is an uphill stretch

of road in a steep-sided valley. They say they understand

the concerns of residents and they are working with them

on options for the The Welsh Government recently held

a consultation on the way councils But health experts say that,

without funding, this won't make We need greater investment in air

pollution reduction interventions, We've all got a role to play,

but I do think we need stronger leadership from the Welsh

Government. And I think, without leadership

on a national scale, then we will struggle

to crack this problem. The Welsh Government declined

an interview, but in a statement, said they are "firmly committed"

to reducing emissions and improving air quality in Wales,

but they need the public They said their consultation

"recognises the health benefits to be gained" from reducing

the population's exposure to air They're now in the process

of "considering responses" We also asked the Welsh Government

if they would follow in London's footsteps to invest

in low emission zones. They said councils are

already able to do this. For people living on Wales'

most polluted roads, Each year, roads in the UK

are allowed to breach a fixed air So far this year, Hafodyrynys Road

has breached that limit 57 times. Caerphilly council is due

to meet on Thursday where, although they wouldn't confirm it,

we understand they will consider compulsory purchase orders,

along with other options. For Deanna and Andrew,

they have made the difficult decision to take their house

off the market. Until something is sorted,

I don't think we're in a position to sell because I don't think people

will really want to We shouldn't have to choose between

having a family or where we live. You should be able to have a healthy

family wherever you live. Down the road, Dawn

is heading to bed. As she waits to hear

what will happen on her street, the message to the rest of Wales

is clear: doing nothing Award-winning comedian Rhod Gilbert

is back for a new series. Please tell me you've got

something else I can wear. Would you know what

a polyanthus was? No.