The Government will publish its Clean Air Strategy this summer, Environment Secretary Michael Gove has confirmed.

Speaking to the Environmental Audit Committee earlier this week, he said the document will be released following the local elections which take place in May.

The strategy is expected to cover five major pollutants: sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic compounds (VOC), particulates and ammonia.

Gove said: “Shortly after the local elections conclude we will be publishing the next set of measures that we believe will be necessary to clean our air and they will cover everything from tailpipe emissions, to ammonia generated by intensive agriculture, to the way in which we have environmental permitting of our ports.

“When that document is published it will quite rightly be held up to scrutiny, but one of the points that has been made to me, and I accept, is that the air quality problem is a huge public health issue, and unless it is properly addressed it will shorten lives, it will impose additional costs on the NHS, and it will continue to mean that the quality of the lives of the people whom it is our responsibility to serve is diminished.”

The strategy was first mooted after the Government published its air quality plan in July last year.