Council and professional bodies have accused ministers of passing responsibility for tackling illegal levels of air pollution to local authorities without clarity or adequate funding.

The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) claimed ministers were ‘abdicating responsibility' for the issue.

Head of policy, Tony Lewis, said: ‘The Government's proposals are woefully inadequate to tackle air pollution and place far too much responsibility on the shoulders of our over-stretched local authorities.

‘We stand on the cliff-edge of a national public health emergency and these plans are devoid of substantive proposals, timescales for addressing the key challenges, clarity around targets or even availability of resources to support necessary actions.'

The CIEH said it was concerned by the Government's confidence that Clean Air Zones were the ‘panacea to solving air pollution' and that leaving councils to come up with innovative solutions would ‘lead to incoherent and inconsistent approaches to a national problem'.

In a draft consultation response, London Councils said the plan ‘commits to very little action that will be taken by government itself and looks to place the responsibility of dealing with air pollution onto local authorities, without clarity on appropriate regulatory or financial support'.