Greenpeace campaigners hold blockade at Volkswagen’s HQ

Greenpeace air pollution campaigners and medical professionals have blocked more than 800 Volkswagen staff from entering the company’s head office in Milton Keynes this morning (20 August).

Protesting against VW's diesel emissions, campaigners barricaded the entrances with sick bay furniture and set up a diesel pollution clinic outside to offer advice and health checks to staff and members of the public.

Volkswagen sells the most diesel cars in the UK; one in five new diesel cars are VW Group. Greenpeace is demanding Volkswagen commit to stop producing diesel cars and go 100 per cent electric.

Mel Evans, clean air campaigner at Greenpeace, said: “As the UK’s biggest seller of diesel cars, Volkswagen is complicit in an air pollution crisis that’s filling up emergency departments and GP surgeries.

“Volkswagen sold us a lie about diesel being clean. Its diesel addiction is seriously harming people’s health.

“Volkswagen won’t meet with us and won’t listen. So today we’ve brought the truth about diesel to its doorstep.

“Volkswagen must face up to its responsibility for deadly air pollution and commit to end diesel production now.”  

More than two-thirds of people believe car companies, like Volkswagen, should be held to account for toxic diesel pollution and be made to contribute to a Clean Air Fund [1], according to a poll released by Greenpeace today. [2]

Aarash Saleh, 33, Doctor in respiratory medicine from Manchester, working in London, who is at the protest today, said:

“Diesel pollution is causing horrendous suffering across the UK and storing up a lifetime of troubled health for our kids. If you could see it, diesel would be banned tomorrow.”

The peaceful blockade at VW’s UK head office comes as concerns are growing about the health impacts of air pollution.