Concerns over Air Quality Research at Walcot Parade
As a campaigner for better air quality on London Road, I’ve welcomed the Council’s Clean Air Zone (CAZ) plan for Bath. Even if it has taken the prospect of the Council being fined by central government over their failure to tackle Bath’s air quality crisis, after years of resident’s concerns being ignored by Liberal Democrat and Conservative Councillors, to spur them to action.
However, my submission to the Council’s consultation pointed out that the initial proposals are lacking in a few areas. Questions have been raised about the extent and methods of the modelling of the effects of Class C and D CAZs in Bath. In the interests of an evidence and common sense-based approach to local policy, it’s necessary to raise one specific issue that has been brought to my attention:
Some emissions readings for the London road area were taken from a new monitor at Walcot Parade on the outbound lane of London Road; guidelines for such monitors state that they should be positioned at about head height on pedestrian pavements that are close to the roadside and, as the attached photo shows, the Walcot Parade device is about eight feet in the air. There are problems with the data collected from this position.
- That stretch of pavement itself is virtually unused, as it’s extremely narrow and leads effectively to nowhere.
- Almost all pedestrians use either the higher pavement of Walcot Parade itself (which would put their heads actually about 12 feet higher than the monitor) or walk on the other side of the road (which is lower than the monitor’s position)!
So it is difficult to see the data collected from that location accurately reflecting the situations implied by the guidelines. If it should have been at head height for the pedestrians walking at road level then these will be underestimates. If it should have been positioned at head height for those walking on Walcot Parade then they will almost certainly overestimate the emission levels.
This location is significant for being one of only two hot-spots shown by the Council’s modelling to require a £9.00/day charge on passenger cars in order to reduce emissions to legal levels by 2021. I therefore believe it’s important that this specific piece of evidence is re-evaluated when considering the exact form of Bath’s CAZ. Specifically, could the necessary improvements be achieved without the controversial Class D charges?
Nathan Russell
Walcot community campaigner