Group sees red without visiting
Wolverhampton has been branded the worst city in the UK in the battle to beat pollution - although the campaign group that carried out the survey failed to even visit the city.Wolverhampton has been branded the worst city in the UK in the battle to beat pollution - although the campaign group that carried out the survey failed to even visit the city. See also: City table The league table produced by the charity Forum for the Future has sparked outrage in Wolverhampton. Councillor Pat Byrne, the city's cabinet member for environmental services, said: "I find their conclusion offensive. They have not contacted me and to the best of my knowledge have never spoken to anybody in our environmental services department. "Where do they get their facts and figures from? Have they even been to Wolverhampton? I cannot understand what the heck they are talking about but will study their report to try to make more sense of it. "Money is always a problem but I am proud of the efforts being taken to improve the environment here and make Wolverhampton a greener city." Read the full story in the Express & Star
Wolverhampton has been branded the worst city in the UK in the battle to beat pollution - although the campaign group that carried out the survey failed to even visit the city.
See also: City table
The league table produced by the charity Forum for the Future has sparked outrage in Wolverhampton. Councillor Pat Byrne, the city's cabinet member for environmental services, said: "I find their conclusion offensive. They have not contacted me and to the best of my knowledge have never spoken to anybody in our environmental services department.
"Where do they get their facts and figures from? Have they even been to Wolverhampton? I cannot understand what the heck they are talking about but will study their report to try to make more sense of it.
"Money is always a problem but I am proud of the efforts being taken to improve the environment here and make Wolverhampton a greener city."
Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, a charity launched by environmental campaigner Jonathon Porritt 11 years ago, boasted: "We hope this index will make our cities better places to live and we also hope that it will encourage some healthy competition amongst them to see who is the greenest."
But the organisation's spokeswoman Imogen Martineau today confesssed that the people who prepared the report had NOT been to Wolverhampton or any other city as part of their research.
She admitted: "We do not have the resources to do that and have had to rely on statistics from existing data. It is meant to be a snapshot and it was not meant to cause offence, simply to stimulate debate.."
Wolverhampton is ranked bottom of the country's 20 biggest cities on environmental impact - described as its use of resources and creation of pollution. It is placed 16th in the study's overall standings.
Amongst its other findings is that people in Wolverhampton throw away more waste than anybody else but the council is ranked second in the country for improvements to recycling in the past five years.
By John Scott