A Greenwich mum is fighting for improved air quality after her three-year-old son was hospitalised and now relies on an inhaler twice a day.

Alice Potter, 37, moved to Charlton nearly five years ago with her partner and said that in the past two years, her family have experienced a variety of breathing difficulties.

The mum said she had not been particularly aware of air quality standards before the pandemic.

However, Ms Potter said she had to bring her son Lenny, who was two at the time, to Queen Elizabeth Hospital last year when she and her partner realised he was having trouble breathing.

Ms Potter told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “There was lots of coughing and a lot of wheezing.

"We didn’t actually pick it up ourselves, it was the nursery manager who indicated to us that he wasn’t breathing properly which was obviously very scary so we went straight to the hospital and spent the next 12 hours there.”

Lenny has since had a follow up appointment with a respiratory paediatric team and been to the GP several times.

His mum said he has now been prescribed an inhaler to be used twice a day to defend against a potential coughing attack.

She said: “It’s really hard. It’s actually something I never thought we would be able to overcome because Lenny is very feisty and strong and was really putting his full body into rejecting the use of the inhaler.

"He was really starting to view it as a form of punishment or torture. It was really sad.”

She added: “You can’t officially diagnose an under five-year-old with asthma, so it’s quite tricky for healthcare providers to prescribe the right treatment.”

The mum claimed a member of Lewisham Hospital’s healthcare team was able to incentivise Lenny to use his inhaler about a month ago by making the activity more playful.

Ms Potter said she fears local air quality could be contributing to her son’s breathing difficulties, with Charlton sitting alongside the A2, South Circular Road and the approach to the Blackwall Tunnel.

The mum said: “Particularly with this last winter, his cough didn’t stop. It got really bad at night.

"He would just be lying in bed coughing constantly, non-stop night on night. Obviously there are waiting lists. We’ve been to the GP many times, but they can’t X-ray him and they can’t do invasive testing yet.”

The mum said her partner has also since been prescribed an inhaler to deal with his breathing.

She added that she herself suffered from an asthma attack a year and a half ago, after not having the condition since she was a child.

Ms Potter said: “It was quite alarming because I couldn’t empty my lungs, which meant I could not really breathe properly so obviously that gets a bit of an anxiety cycle going. It was the middle of the night so I just had to get up and go to hospital.”

The parent said all of the healthcare staff she and her family have dealt with regarding their breathing difficulties have been brilliant.

She added that the situation has made her become more aware about air quality in the local area as a result.

Ms Potter said: “I would like everyone to have an awareness of the effects of poor air quality. It’s vast and not even fully understood and so many people have absolutely no idea. It should be as apparent as the ingredients on the back of a packet of crisps.”

The mum said she found out about Mums for Lungs after her son’s stay in hospital. The group campaigns to improve air quality in the UK for the benefit of young children.

A Freedom of Information request obtained by the group found that 1,481 children under five across the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust were admitted to hospital with respiratory difficulties last year.

Jemima Hartshorn, co-founder of Mums for Lungs, told the LDRS: “Greenwich feels like a green outer borough and yet air pollution in many places is incredibly high, three times the recommendations of the World Health Organization.

"At these levels, the air pollution is stunting lung growth, causing and exacerbating asthma, cancer, cardiac issues and much more.”

She added: “The government at all levels need to come together, reduce driving on all our roads, incentivise the phasing out of diesel vehicles and wood burning. Little Greenwich lungs deserve this."

Greenwich Council revealed plans in July last year to add traffic restrictions to roads surrounding Greenwich Park on weekdays during rush hour.

The authority previously claimed a trial of the scheme would be carried out in the summer of this year, but the decision is awaiting a final decision after being called in by councillors.

A council spokesperson said in a statement on the scheme: “How we all choose to move around our borough can impact whole communities in positive and negative ways.”

They added: “We have the fourth highest number of babies being hospitalised with respiratory tract infections as well as one of the highest levels of childhood obesity in London.

"Traffic is one of the main causes of air pollution and 31 per cent of the borough’s carbon emissions.

"By reducing it we can make it easier and safer for people to walk and cycle.”