Air quality management changes...

Readers may well already be aware that B&NES Council has invited residents to comment on the above.


Full details of the Consultation Documents may be obtained through this link.

A member of the Newbridge Matters team has sent the following letter to the B&NES Council and, we urge readers to consider the consultation documents and submit their comments.

You will see from the letter that only one of the many aspects of the consultation has been covered, that of providing air pollution monitoring equipment on sites not already covered.  This applies to the present Park and Ride Car Park here in Newbridge.

Any comments must be submitted by 31^st January 2012 to:

Bath and North East Somerset Council

Environmental Monitoring

Environmental Services

FREEPOST (BA1458)

Bath

BA1 1ZZ

Letter sent by a member of our team referred to above:

Consultation on Changes to the Bath Air Quality Management Area

7^th    January 2012

The vast amount of information you have provided in your Consultation Documents takes a considerable amount of time to read and comprehend and, so far I have been unable to complete the task.

However at this stage, may I make just one point which is that from the information at present available, further air monitoring action must be taken.

It would seem that the present levels of air pollution at sites not at present monitored, are either not known at all or, values have been obtained from ‘modelling’, these being considered insignificant compared with present day knowledge of the levels of air pollution causing problems with the health of various sections of the population.

I am sure you would agree, that had we known more about air pollution at the time the Royal Victoria Park Children’s Play Area was constructed immediately adjoining the A4 Upper Bristol Road here in Bath, it would not have been sited in this position.  I appreciate the large cost that would be involved in moving the play equipment to a much more suitable site, possibly within the park but, surely human life cannot be measured in terms of money.  I request that very serious thought be given to re-siting this play area, which is used by many thousands of young children every year, not only from Bath but from outlying areas, without delay.

May I suggest that monitoring stations be set up at all schools and their playing fields, hospitals, park and ride car parks and other commercial locations where large numbers of vehicles congregate within the B&NES area, so that definite information may be made available on air pollution levels.

It may well be possible to encourage those responsible for these sites to receive detailed information from the Council on the method of collecting this pollution information and, for them to forward the samples obtained to you.

As far as schools are concerned, this method of collecting the required information could well be included within the normal school curriculum, making children aware of the dangers of air pollution.  This could be done in a similar way to that which many of them already provide weather information to the National Weather Bureau but, in this case the samples would be returned to you for analysis.

Such a system would then provide real data on many of these additional sites at no additional cost to the Council, other than the initial cost of providing the sampling equipment and instruction on the retrieval of the samples.

I hope that these initial comments will be taken into consideration when you assess the results of your consultation period, which ends on 31^st January 2012.

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We hope readers will respond to the Consultation Documents with their own views on this very important issue.