Air quality and COVID

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Bradford’s air quality improved markedly during the lockdown but is back up to illegal values again (40mg/m3 of NO2). The Centre for Cities report uses DEFRA figures, showing this pattern of badly bouncing back for most cities in Britain. Bradford has the worst nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels of the 49 cities studied, both before and after COVID.

NO2 is a major polluter from petrol-driven traffic, and gaining legal levels is the aim of the Clean Air Zone starting next year. The health professionals of Born in Bradford point out that legal levels are not safe, and that particulate matter from brakes stays in lungs and blood is another killer pollutant of traffic, whether petrol or electric-driven. BSTA would like to see the Clean Air Zone insistence on ‘clean’ engines extended to all traffic, with support for those can’t afford the upgrades.

In another recent report air pollution is shown to be associated with higher risk of catching COVID. Air quality really must be improved way better than simply the illegal limits.

Transport Action Network (TAN)

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TAN keeps us up to date with national news and other local campaigns, and their own challenges to continued road-building. TAN director Chris Todd led us in our July strategy meeting, and continues to advise us. Here are two pieces from recent TAN newsletters which report on national figures who talk the talk.

  • Lord Deben, chair of the Climate Change Committee (CCC) at a Greener Transport Solutions webinar said that: “the government must be congratulated on its targets and attacked on the basis it has not delivered on the mechanisms for delivering those targets”. He also went further saying that: “we’ve also got to ask ourselves a very big question about the road building programme. There is a very great deal of money there which should be used in other ways.” This is the first time that the CCC has been so explicit in its criticism of RIS2 [the government road programme] and roadbuilding in general.
  • Grant Shapps acknowledges in his Transport Decarbonisation Plan that “we cannot, of course, simply rely on the electrification of road transport, or believe that zero emission cars and lorries will solve all our problems”. It is something the Government has started to address in urban areas where it wants to see half of all journeys made by walking and cycling and for more people to travel by bus.

We are meeting

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BSTA has begun to meet physically and all readers of the newsletter are very welcome at out next meetings on Wednesday November 3rd, and Thursday December 2nd, both at 7pm in the Tambourine café at the top of Saltaire, 38 Bingley Rd, Shipley BD18 4RU.

We have a constitution and a committee: Anna Watson (Chair), Jenny Stein (Treasurer), Ludi Simpson (Secretary), Tony Plumbe, Gordon Roscoe, Bryan Groom. We are applying for grants to help increase the impact of our actions. We are working with Shipley Town Council on a major event in the new year to highlight the gains in air quality and lowered pollution to be gained from a review of transport plans. We continue to speak to businesses, residents and schools.

We are looking to bring much greater public understanding, and to influence the politicians who make decisions, not just in Shipley but along the Aire Valley route of the road, and across Bradford and West Yorkshire Councillors.

BSTA puts our alternatives to widening the roads leading up to Shipley

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Following three meetings to discuss ‘How would you spend £48m if not on widening roads?’, BSTA has sent details of alternatives to Bradford Council, for them to consider in what we understand to be an imminent reappraisal of the scheme.

It is relatively cheap to put in a clean air zone as planned next year for commercial vehicles in the Aire Valley to Shipley which is Bradford’s worst-hit pollution sink. Why not extend it to all cars, and give the grants that allow families to convert to cleaner engines? Why not do it hand-in-hand with all the measures that help people to avoid using cars for shorter trips: co-ordinated cycle routes with priority and places to keep bikes safe. Safe and well-maintained routes to walk to schools and shops.

Through-traffic of heavy lorries contributes a lot of Bradford’s pollution. Weight restrictions would keep heavy loads on the M62 instead of cutting through Bradford to get to the North West. At the same time, a rail freight terminal in the Shipley area could link up with ‘last mile’ van delivery of parcels and shopping.

Park and ride schemes are well-tried and would suit the Aire Valley with rapid bus and train routes into Bradford. They would work well with deterring long-stay parking in the city. It would make such a difference if West Yorkshire buses were much cheaper.

The full list of our alternatives is here. Please comment on your own priorities.

Join the debate on what Bradford Council should do to decarbonise the District

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Bradford Council has funded an online platform for residents to suggest and comment on initiatives to reduce carbon emissions in the District. It is only available until the end of November, so use it now. There will be a workshop with Councillors and businesses to discuss the suggestions.

This is the link to make suggestions and comments: https://yorkshire-climate.org/

Registration is straightforward, and on logging in you are able to

  • Click on an initiative already proposed, and then support it, express an interest, make a comment or propose an alternative.
  • Click on an issue (eg. Transport), see the existing issues and initiatives proposed, or propose a new issue and an initiative that would address it.

The process is rapid – progressing through discussion of initiatives for a fortnight, and then voting for them. So if you have some space to contribute and agree or disagree with initiatives, get going now!

It is a system that has been used in Germany and elsewhere to asses support for initiatives and the reasons for support or opposition. Use it to express your views and be heard.

Of course there is no commitment to take any of these suggestions on board, but it is a means of recording your views, and those views being independently recorded by the University of Leeds. Your comments are anonymous – your details are only used for registration, and you can choose a nickname for your comments.

https://yorkshire-climate.org/