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Queen living in most polluted street


Britain’s Queen Elizabeth is living in the most polluted street in the UK.

According to new figures, Grosvenor Place, which sits behind the 87-year-old monarch’s home, Buckingham Palace, is surrounded by some of the most polluted roads in Britain.

They have the highest levels of nitrogen dioxide, a toxic gas which comes mostly from traffic fumes, and the air outside the palace was found to be almost four times the European legal limit.

Alan Andrews, a lawyer with the environmental group Client Earth, told The Sunday Times newspaper: "Her Majesty came to the throne in the same year as London was engulfed by the great smog [1952], 60 years later air pollution is still killing thousands of her subjects each year."

The figures were released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and show some of London’s top attractions are also affected by some of the country’s most polluted roads, including areas near Madame Tussauds.

Simon Birkett, director of Clean Air in London, said: "The thought that hundreds of thousands or millions of tourists and Londoners in a year may be exposed to air pollution this high is deeply troubling."

A spokesperson for Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, claims since his election in 2008, the amount of people living in areas where nitrogen dioxide levels are above legal limits has halved.