DEADLY smog kills hundreds of Glaswegians each year, environmental campaigners warned yesterday in a plea for councillors to clean up the city’s streets.

Public submissions on the city’s transport strategy close tomorrow, with the outcome shaping the city’s infrastructure over the next decade.

The draft document cites the reduction of “harmful traffic emissions” as one of the council’s objectives.

But Friends of the Earth Scotland’s Emilia Hanna said plans for new cycle routes and tree-lined avenues did not go far enough — the city needed to introduce a “low-emission zone” to squeeze traffic out of the city centre.

“Everyone knows that traffic is the main cause of Glasgow’s toxic air, but the new transport plans skirt around the issue of air pollution,” she said.

Tiny particles in exhaust fumes are known to penetrate the lungsand cross into the bloodstream, where they can cause heart and lung diseases, cancers and in some cases prove fatal.

In April researchers connected the phenomenon to 2,094 deaths per year in Scotland, with Glasgow alone losing 306 lives on average.