Well done to the Watford Observer for devoting a whole page to the subject of air pollution in last week’s edition (How dangerous is air pollution? June 21).

Watford is changing for the worse: roads which were moderately busy two decades ago now have lines of slow-moving traffic. When I look at roads like Hempstead Road with its big houses, it is apparent how the local environment has changed; for much of the day, the local environment along Hempstead Road is far from pleasant. Rickmansworth Road is just as bad.

Making a sizeable dent in air pollution is beyond the scope of individuals, and local authorities are also limited in what they can do, particularly, so it seems, in the case of Hertfordshire. Government, if it is worthy of the name, owes it to its citizens to step in and try to tackle the problem. After all, as the article said, 70 per cent of UK towns have unsafe levels of air pollution and Watford is one of them. But nothing significant is done by government. Instead of building new towns to absorb new population (one thinks of Milton Keynes, Stevenage, Bracknell, Crawley, Telford, etc) we have a government overloading London’s periphery; places such as Watford are ill-prepared to take on this burden. Weakening town planning regulations to allow building on the green belt are part of the ‘cunning plan’.

To improve transport and reduce pollution, here is a proposal which a people will scoff at, but I’ll make it all the same: the government should fund local authorities in order to bring back trolleybuses! They were the greenest of road vehicles, and did not make the racket that is made by diesel buses. But I just know that such an idea would be anathema for the current administration with its slavish adherence to the free-market. I just cannot imagine government breaking with the dogma to finance the building of clean electric trolleybus systems. No, we are stuck with the privatised, diesel vehicles and some of the highest bus fares in the country as the traffic-jams lengthen. We and our children will be inhaling those particulates for many years to come...

Clive Jones

Gade Avenue, Watford