Pupils breathe easy after top prizes won

The eight children from Michael Ayres School won prizes in a colouring and caption contest held by airAlert.

This is a service which lets people across Sussex know when there are going to be high levels of air pollution.

It allows them to plan their activities around the predicted air quality to enable them to enjoy being outside without putting their health at risk. It is run by the Sussex Air Quality Partnership. Project officer Nigel Jenkins said Bognor had between 20 and 30 alerts about poor air conditions between last May and September.

These were related to the quantity of ozone, measured in parts per million, in the air. This is created when pollution in the atmosphere reacted to sunlight on still, hot days.

Coastal towns such as Bognor were particularly prone to ozone for two reasons.

A large amount of the gas regularly drifted over from the continent to mix with the high number of sunshine hours.

He explained that a few air alerts would also be raised each winter when several still, cold and sunny days occurred together to increase the concentration of ozone.

Potentially unhealthy levels of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide could also occur.

"But 80-90 per cent of the alerts each year in a town like Bognor would be related to ozone levels in the summer," he added.

The competition was open to reception and junior schools around Sussex.

One of the Michael Ayres' pupils, Joe Stead, won the top prize in his age category to collect a 50 bike voucher. Seven others were runners up and received boomerangs. They were brother and sister Tom and Katie Scutt, Chloe Carter, Jasmine Jupp, Alex Pollard, Connor McCabe and Jessica Fitzpatrick.

Entries were judged by wildlife painter David Shepherd OBE and cartoonist Ron McGill, who praised their high quality. Arun District Council chairman Cllr Ashvin Patel presented the prizes.

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