Donations pour in as St Mary's School pollution battle grabs stars' attention

Oscar winner Emma Thompson, and the cast of Eastenders are the latest celebrities to publicly endorse the parents at St Mary's Primary School in their battle to build a Green Wall to combat playground air pollution. And a donation of £10,000 has now been pledged by Swarovski, whose European HQ at Chiswick Business Park is less than a mile from the school.

The project, known as The Chiswick Oasis, has now attracted support from well-known names ranging from David Dimbleby, to Jeremy Paxman, and Claudia Winkleman. They have all recorded video messages praising the parents for their work.

Emma Thompson gave her message of support on Friday, a day after the cast of Eastenders signed an Albert Square plate which will go on auction soon to help the parent's group raise more money for the Green Wall. Emma said; "We're used to hearing about levels of pollution in places like Beijing but the levels of pollution near your school are shocking, and something must be done about it.

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has announced an allocation of £32,000, nearly half of the project's fundraising target. The Mayor's funding allocation will only be released if the project is fully funded by 14 December, leaving the project only weeks to raise the remaining money.The PTA of St Mary's Primary School has also donated £5000.

You can make a contribution to the fund by visiting the project's web site which also has details of the full proposal.

David Dimbleby reacted to the news of the Mayor’s pledge with enthusiasm, as did Jeremy Paxman, Francesco da Mosto and Claudia Winkleman (pictured below).

The news has also gone beyond Chiswick, with the story appearing on the London Metro, then on Wednesday on ITV News both at lunch time and at in the evening’s main news.
And this Sunday the story is appearing on Sky News.

Local resident Andrea Carnevali, who has been spearheading fundraising efforts, said: "Last week the Mayor of London awarded our campaign to build a green wall by 2 among the most polluted schools with £32,000 as "one of London’s best Civic initiatives of 2018".

"Ever since then support has been pouring in, not just from local families and the Chiswick community in general, but from various celebrities too. We’ve expecting several other to come through within the next few days.

"In the last 2 months we’ve raised around £48k and that’s an incredible achievement, but we want this to become a reality we must to do even more and hit the target by the 14th of December.

"We really need everyone’s support on this. It’s easy to sit back and complain the government isn’t doing enough and maybe just click “like” or “share” on your Facebook feed. At this point we just need cash. If each of us can just pledge even just £10 and convince at least one person to do the same we can do this. The lives of more than 800 children depends on us. And if the project is a success then it can become a model for all other schools in London to follow."

‘Chiswick Oasis' was launched in September by a group of parents from St. Mary's and William Hogarth primary schools, which are immediately adjacent to the proposed site of the project at the southern end of Duke Road. The schools' grounds run alongside the A4, a major six-lane road which carries up to 100,000 motor vehicles every day.

The project involves installation of a “living wall” and other landscaping features along the A4 boundary wall, using plants which have proven benefits in removing pollutants from the air and improving air quality. Once the landscaping improvements are installed, the proposal is for the site to be made available for fairs, markets and community events, outside of school hours. The full proposal can be seen at the project's website.

Children wear face masks to demonstrate their opposition to breathing polluted air

The parents say that this marks the beginning of a new phase for the "Chiswick Oasis” as they begin to develop a new blueprint for green design that can be rolled out across other schools in London.

Air pollution levels surveys carried out around William Hogarth School and Cavendish Primary, as well as St Mary's found that all three were experiencing high levels of pollution, mainly due to the proximity of busy main roads. In the case of St Mary's approximately 47,300 vehicles per day travel on the core roads within a 200m radius of the school, which the report said was is within the upper quartile for traffic volumes amongst the 50 schools assessed as part of the programme.

November 10, 2018