People’s health is being adversely affected by the pollution in our city centre (The Argus, July 5). Reducing air pollution is a moral and legal obligation upon our council, and it is only achievable by reducing traffic within the city.

If Britain was a totalitarian state, the Government could simply decide that most people don’t need a private car. However, in a capitalist democracy the tools which local government has to reduce traffic movements are making motoring less affordable and less convenient.

An AA survey reported earlier this year that about a third of motorists would give up car ownership if fuel prices went on rising, and most weeks there is a letter in The Argus from someone complaining about parking charges.

Soozie Campbell says that where cars are held in a slow-moving queue, 30% of journeys are abandoned (The Argus, September 19).

Anyone who has ever driven on a four-lane motorway will know traffic moves freely when there isn’t much of it. But as soon as traffic increases, it slows down and everything just grinds to a halt.

The Argus front page about the “fight for a car-friendly city” (September 19) says the Unchain The Brighton Motorist lobby group wants cheaper parking, higher speed limits and road engineering to allow cars to drive around the city centre.

But for the health of those who live and work here, the city needs high parking charges, lower speed limits and road engineering to reduce car usage.

The council is trying to reduce air pollution. Companies in Brighton and Hove need to do their bit by making the shopping centres so attractive that people want to come and shop here.

It really is surprising that this lobby group is being lead by taxi firms. If people give up car ownership or are deterred from bringing their own vehicles into the city, this is a business opportunity for taxi drivers.

When I call a restaurant to book a table, why aren’t they saying, “Would you like me to arrange a taxi for you, Sir?”

When I was a child, shops would offer a delivery service for anything too big to take home on the bus.

All the businesses in this lobby group should take a step back and think. Instead of fighting for a lost cause, they should plan how they are going to survive as an employer and service-provider in what will inevitably be a future with fewer private cars.

Ian James, Easthill Drive, Portslade

Imposing a 20mph zone all over Brighton & Hove will not decrease pollution – it will increase it.

We train aspiring taxi drivers to make sure they’re up to our standards. One of the most important things they have to do is pass a DSA advanced driving test. Most candidates who have been driving for years realise they have to re-learn how to drive in order to pass, particularly with regard to emissions.

In the old days you were taught to use “engine braking” to slow down – going down through the gears from fourth to third and second.

Now you can fail the test for doing precisely that, because driving unnecessarily in second gear causes unnecessary pollution.

Cars aren’t designed to travel permanently in second gear at 20mph; they’re far less fuel-efficient at artificially low speeds.

Where the speed limit is decreased from 30mph to 20mph, petrol consumption increases by 10.1% (or 5.85 miles per gallon).

Emissions research by the Highways Agency confirms a dramatic increase in noxious pollution from vehicles driving at lower speeds.

So where does the theory that "Lower Speeds means Lower Pollution" come from?

It only works if you succeed in scaring a significant number of motorists off the roads and into walking or cycling. Nothing else.

Except we won’t be forcing them off the roads – we’ll be displacing them. Shoppers will go to Worthing and tourists will go to Southend instead.

M Li and P Hawthorne, Brighton and Hove Streamline Taxis