Despite calls from MPs and the Environmental Industries Commission the ODA has said it will not fit polluting non road mobile machinery (NRMM) with exhaust after treatment as required by Best Practice Guidance (BPG). In January 2009, as reported on Games Monitor, a group of MPs put down an Early Day Motion calling on construction projects, in particular the Olympics, to ensure that the most polluting plant be fitted with suitable pollution control technology. This criticism of the ODA was supported by the Environmental Industries Commission. EIC Policy Director, Danny Stevens, said “London is supposed to be a showcase for the world - demonstrating that it can put on the greenest Olympic games to date, yet a commitment to tackle harmful emissions from the construction machinery used on site is being ignored.”

The ODA has sided with manufacturers, who claim the equipment is dangerous to workers and question its effectiveness. In a Freedom of Information response (see attachment, FoI response re Early Day Motion) the ODA says it is insisting on running a pilot study before fitting this equipment on all its machinery. It is unclear how long this study will take and, as a result, whether the ODA will ever get round to fitting this anti-pollution equipment.

In the same Early Day Motion MPs also expressed concern about the failure to reduce dust emissions. At the moment monitoring is only required for coarser particles. However, the most dangerous particles, PM2.5 (see attachment, dangerous particles), remain outside the monitoring regime until 2010. The National Air Quality Strategy points out that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has noted a ‘stronger association with ill health effects’ where these particles are concerned.

The ODA says that it does monitor particles less than 10 microns but is not obliged to monitor smaller particles. However, its document (see attachment, Annex A) makes little mention of this. It has claimed in discussions to have gone beyond what was required. Not so far, it seems, as to introduce monitoring which will be required in just a year or so. By that time the worst of the dust emissions from the Olympic Park will be over as the remediation programme comes to an end.

In its FoI response regarding the Early Day Motion the ODA says it is ‘not aware of any breaches of compliance with conditions’. As already revealed on Games Monitor local people, Leabank Square residents and Clays Lane Travellers in particular, have considerable experience of this ‘compliance with conditions’ which, in the light of recent WHO advice, may have been more dangerous than they previously understood.