More than a quarter of neighbourhoods in England are “nature pollution hotspots” that are dangerous for wildlife, new research suggests.
The findings underscore the fact nature in the UK is in one of the worst states of any country in the world, Friends of the Earth (FoE) said.
The campaigners looked at whether water, air, noise and light pollution reached damaging levels that threaten the survival of various quintessential British species, including important cross-pollinating bees and native bats.
Pollution hotspots are areas that breach all four thresholds.
These could be a waterway where raw sewage dumping can kill fish, places with noxious fumes that stop honeybees from finding scents, or areas with so much noise that animals like birds or reptiles can’t communicate or find food.
It found more than one in four (27.5%) neighbourhoods in England breached all four thresholds.
Many more breached two or three thresholds and there were none that breached none.
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Plotting the ‘hotspot’ neighbourhoods on to a map revealed Chelsea and Fulham in London to be the constituency with the unenviable title of having the highest concentration of pollution hotspots.
But not all the top 10 constituencies were in London, with Salford coming in second place followed by Worsley and Eccles in Greater Manchester, and then the capital’s Vauxhall and Camberwell, and Battersea.
Popular species that are the hallmark of a healthy environment such as otters, dippers, Atlantic salmon, and mayflies have “little protection against the raw sewage, toxic chemicals and slurry” being pumped into their habitats over 1,000 times a day in some of the worst affected areas, the campaigners said.
The overload of nutrients coming from sewage spills drive “rampant” algal blooms, which suck the oxygen out of the water, choking fish and other wildlife.
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Friends of the Earth wants the government to enshrine the right to a healthy environment in a new Environmental Rights Act, which would enable communities to hold regulators and public bodies to account over multiple layers of pollution.
Sienna Somers, nature campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “What harms wildlife often harms people as well. Many of us are forced to breathe the same dirty air and live near sewage-infested rivers.
She added: “Polluters must be held accountable for the harm they cause and forced to clean it up.
“Stronger laws to hold polluters accountable would also give power back to communities to defend our rights in court, creating a cleaner and healthier environment for wildlife and people alike.”
For its analysis of neighbourhoods, Friends of the Earth used Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs), which are geographic areas with similar population sizes that were primarily designed for the Census and have also been used for other purposes.
The full list of constituencies can be found on the Friends of the Earth website. Details of the UK’s LSOAs can be found via the ONS website.
