• WITH reference to engine-idling drivers being hit with £20 penalties: air pollution sufferers will welcome the sudden green conversion of Camden’s environment chief, after his experience of being poisoned by “deadly diesel fumes” while standing outside a polling station last June.

This seems to have been the catalyst for the council’s latest change of policy, that “promises” to get tough with drivers who blatantly leave their engines idling while parked.

But welcomed news as this is, the issue of diesel emissions causing 9,000 deaths in London, has featured prominently throughout the media for the past three years, along with comments from the Mayor of London and numerous eminent medical and scientific bodies such as, the World Health Organisation, Unicef, King’s College London, Queen Mary University, British Lung Foundation.

Which inevitably raises the question, where has the councillor been during those years?

Every day I walk past a number of parked vehicles, private, utility, and council, with engines idling, while their drivers, inside, nonchalantly fiddle with phones or laptops, completely oblivious and ignorant to the detrimental health consequences of their actions. The council could have acted much sooner but chose not to while neighbouring boroughs forged ahead with innovative solutions.

So we wonder how much longer will we have to wait before we see parking wardens enforcing these idling penalties?

For when comparing priorities, yes, illegal parking is an inconvenience, but toxic diesel kills.

MIKE GEORGE, NW5