Five Kingston schools are within 150 metres of roads that exceed the legal limit for air pollution, causing health concerns.

Park Hill School (138m), Tiffin School (53m), Kingston Grammar School (56m), Tolworth Girls’ School and Sixth Form (108m) and Kingston College (44m) are all close to polluted roads.

This is according to data collected by UCL on behalf of ClientEarth, a charity campaigning for better air quality, based on the latest available government figures for NO2 concentration on roads, recorded in 2015 and revised for 2017.

Kingston Council has written an air quality action plan that recognises road transport as the predominant source of pollutants in the borough.

The plan includes exploring improvements to bus and rail services, reviewing the one-way system in central Kingston, discussing with Transport for London extending the Low Emission Zone to cover more/all of KT, investigating impact of roadworks on traffic flow and making major improvements to cycling parking and routes.

Pollution is thought to have a seriously negative impact on children’s health, being linked to children developing smaller lungs as they grow up, as well as causing cancer, triggering heart attacks and strokes and aggravating breathing conditions.

ClientEarth stressed the figures do not necessarily reflect the pollution in the school sites themselves, because barriers such as tall buildings between them and the roads might affect NO2 distribution.