• AS residents of Hampstead know very well we have incredibly poor levels of air quality in our neighbourhood.

Earlier this year I volunteered with Camden Air Action to monitor air pollution levels around Hampstead’s schools and the results were shocking.

One of the biggest causes of our poor air quality is cars, and we need to do everything we can to encourage the switch to hybrid and electric vehicles.

Unfortunately, as a borough, Camden has one of the smallest networks of electric vehicle charging points in London. If we are going to make the switch to electric vehicles, there needs to be many more of these points available to use.

The government currently offers funding for 75 per cent of the cost of installing these charging points, yet Camden Council has only installed 33 to cover 100,000 homes. That’s woefully short of what we need.

Alongside my colleagues and Hampstead councillors Oliver Cooper and Stephen Stark, I am campaigning to get the council to use the government funding available and install more electric vehicle charging points around Hampstead.

We want to use existing lamp-posts, to avoid cluttering our streets, and allow the parking spaces to be dual use, so we don’t reduce our precious parking capacity.

It’s vital we do everything we can to help tackle our air pollution problem.

The Labour-run council are sitting on their hands over this issue, but if would like to join us in this campaign please support our petition here: http://www.makecamdenelectric.com/.

Together we can make Hampstead cleaner and greener.

HAMISH HUNTER
Conservative candidate Hampstead Town