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Air Quality campaigns for everyone

Clean Air Day

Clean Air Day normally takes place on the third Thursday in June and is the UK’s largest air pollution campaign. It encourages everyone to take action to help reduce air pollution and usually involves hundreds of events around the country including many in our borough.

Clean Air Day - Thursday 19 June 2025

The theme for Clean Air Day this year is ‘Air pollution affects your health from before your first breath until your last'.

Even though we often can’t see air pollution, it’s linked to a range of health problems at every stage of our lives:

  • Pre-birth - Exposure in the womb is linked to low birth weight and premature birth 
  • Childhood - Air pollution exposure can affect the development of your lungs and brain, causing or worsening asthma and making it more likely that you have to be admitted to hospital as a child
  • Adulthood - Air pollution can harm every organ in your body, causing heart and lung disease, diabetes and strokes, as well as increasing your risk of dementia and mental health issues, heart attacks and cancer
  • End of life - Through causing or worsening serious health problems at every stage of your life, air pollution can reduce your life expectancy. It’s associated with between 29,000 and 43,000 deaths a year in the UK

The impacts of air pollution are felt by everyone, but not equally. Children, older people and people with existing health conditions are also disproportionately affected by the health harms of air pollution. Find out more about the health harms of air pollution by visiting the Clean Air Hub.

By cleaning up our air, we can all benefit from immediate and lasting health improvements, and help ensure that future generations can live happier, healthier lives. Find out more about what we’re doing and what you can do to help reduce local air pollution on our Air Quality webpages.

What we are doing for Clean Air Day 2025

On Sunday 15 June join us at Richmond’s first cargo bike fair at Old Deer Park, Richmond between 11am and 4pm.

On Thursday 19 June join us near the flower stall in George Street, Richmond from 11am to 4pm. Come along to:

  • Meet the team - find out what they've been up to and what you can do to improve air quality in your area
  • Let us know what you think about our new Air Quality Action Plan
  • Find out about cargo bikes from our expert and whether one would be suitable for you
  • Ask questions about indoor air pollution - do you know much about it? Come and find out more

On Tuesday 24 June and Sunday 29 June we’re running free creative workshops on the theme ‘Trees – the lungs of Richmond‘ as part of the Clean Air Day campaign and Richmond Arts & Ideas festival. Join local artist Paloma who will demonstrate several art techniques which you can try out and use to create your own tree image. Consider the importance of trees and what they mean to you.

Get more information and book tickets on Eventbrite. Tickets are also linked from the festival events webpage – where there is also a programme of other events including talks, walks, workshops and much more.

We also have an un-ticketed after-school drop-in session with Paloma running from 3.15 to 4.30pm on Tuesday 24 June at Twickenham library (first floor).

For Clean Air Day, we are also:

  • Running a school’s poster competition on the theme ‘Clean Air Future’ where KS1 and KS2 students will consider what a clean air future looks like and what we need to do to make it happen. Entries are via schools who can get more information from our Campaigns for schools page
  • Encouraging businesses to work with employees and suppliers to help reduce their contributions to local air pollution. Get ideas about what can be done on our Campaigns for business page.

What you can do for Clean Air Day

We encourage residents and businesses to think and talk about air pollution throughout the week, and to walk, cycle, scoot and wheel whenever you are able to.

Use these resources to help you to reduce your air pollution exposure and contributions:

Walking

Green deliveries

Cycling

Public transport

Try to leave your car at home when you can.

Educate yourself on air pollution and share your knowledge:

  • Learn more about air pollution from the Clean Air Hub
  • Discover ways to reduce your impact on local air pollution with the air pollution calculator
  • Amplify the call for cleaner air by re-tweeting Clean Air Day posts by @LBRuT and @cleanairdayuk on and around 19 June using the hashtag #CleanAirDay2025

Previous Clean Air Day events

View previous Clean Air Day events.

Clean Air Night

The second ever Clean Air Night is on 22 January 2025 and aims to build greater public awareness of the health impacts of air pollution produced by wood / solid fuel burning in the home.

Burning wood is the most polluting way to heat your home. Recent research reveals that even homes using newer 'EcoDesign' wood burners are still releasing three times as much pollution as those without wood burners. The smoke created burning wood contains fine particle air pollution (PM2.5). When inhaled, the particulates enter your bloodstream and circulate to your organs, contributing to heart and lung disease, diabetes, and dementia and other conditions.

As well as harming your health, wood burning is also bad for the environment because it releases more carbon emissions than oil or gas (to produce the same heat), contributing to climate change.

This video provides more information about the real cost of burning wood in the home, which include the impacts on health and the planet, as well as being more expensive than other forms of heating.

Protecting public health from wood burning pollution webinar

To learn more about the health harms of domestic wood burning and how we can protect our health, the campaign organiser Global Action Plan ran a webinar with four expert speakers, including professor Holgate, one of the UK’s Clean Air Champions.

Find out more and watch the webinar recordings online, with separate videos for each speaker for easy viewing.

Wood burning pop-up

We are running a pop-up event in Richmond to discuss wood burning and help everyone make informed heating choices. Come along and meet our air quality officers and learn about the impact of wood burning on health and air quality.

Event details:

  • Date: Wednesday 22 January 2025
  • Time: 11am to 2pm
  • Location: George Street paved area (next to the flower stall) 

Car Free Day

Car Free Day happens on 22 September each year and aims to reclaim streets away from vehicles for people to use, by championing traffic-free city centres and promoting active travel. The most popular activities are closing roads to produce Play Streets and School Streets.

What we did for Car Free Day 2024

We waived the fee to close roads to enable residents to apply for a temporary residential road closure so that children can play in a car-free, safe environment. In response to applications, 23 Play Streets across the borough were put in place over the weekend of 21 and 22 September 2024. If you are organising a play street at any time, you can sign up to get free resources on London Play’s website, including tips and ideas for running a playstreet.

We asked residents to consider leaving their car at home on Car Free Day and to travel actively or by public transport for short journeys if they could. Walking or cycling is a great way to celebrate the many benefits that travelling actively brings, which includes a positive impact on health and wellbeing, improved local air quality and reduced carbon emissions.

What you could do for Car Free Day 2024

Our network of electric cargo bikes for hire scheme now has 10 locations across the borough having expanded in September to include a bike in Barnes. More information about the scheme can be found on the Our Bike website and we will be announcing the roll-out of new cargo bike parking bays after a pilot scheme.

If you do not own a bicycle and want to trial one, you can hire a new bicycle (or e-bike or cargo bike) with Try Before You Bike for a monthly fee, with the option to then buy the bike. You can watch an interview with a resident who used the scheme to trial a couple of bikes to find the right one for her and her family.

There are many schemes in the borough that can help you to swap the car for an alternative, both on Car Free Day and at any other time:

Previous Car Free Day events

View previous Car Free Day events.

Ask About Asthma campaign

The Ask About Asthma campaign will run from Monday 9 to Sunday 15 September 2024. The campaign aims to raise awareness about children and young people's asthma, improve young people's asthma care, and increase understanding that air pollution can trigger asthma attacks.

This year’s campaign theme 'helping children and young people with asthma to live their best lives' aims to focus on good asthma control to reduce or eradicate symptoms. Find out more about the campaign.

Idling Action Campaign

The Council has taken action on engine idling in the borough and we ask drivers to switch off engines when their vehicle is parked for more than one minute to avoid creating unnecessary air pollution. Idling action events have been held around schools, at level crossings and in Richmond town centre.

We are part of a coordinated London wide scheme tackling idling, called Idling Action. Together with the Mayor of London’s team, we work with primary schools to educate children about air quality, to raise awareness about idling and promote active travel to school.

Further information

For the latest information on Council-led campaigns, view:

Up to: Air Quality campaigns and events

Updated: 11 June 2025

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