‘Why has nothing been done to tackle pollution?’

COUNCILLORS AND RESIDENTS COMPLAIN ABOUT LACK OF ACTION

COUNCILLORS and residents have complained about a lack of action to tackle dangerous levels of pollution in Ashbourne’s town centre, months after declaring the need for urgent action.

Seven months ago, Derbyshire Dales District Council declared Buxton Hill to be a problem air quality area.

The Air Quality Management Area covers Buxton Road from the junction with Windmill Lane and North Avenue, to the junction with St John Street; and St John Street from number 22 to the junction with Cokayne Avenue and Park Road.

However, seven months on and almost nothing has actually been done to combat the issue. This is seven months since senior leadership officer Tim Braund said a “public health hazard exists in this area”.

The fault of the matter has been laid squarely at County Hall – with Derbyshire County Council. Mr Braund said at a meeting last week that county council officers were drawing up a list of potential options to tackle the issue.

He said this was to be stripped down to a shortlist and a budget was being devised for the measures.

Mr Braund said that while the county council can propose its own ways to tackle the issue, it is the district council which is responsible for handling the matter and will ultimately decide what needs to be done, how and by who.

He said most of the likely measures to tackle the issue would have to be carried out by the county council, due to the connection between the problematic levels of pollution and the roads.

The air quality issue, he said earlier this year, is tied to “heavy preponderance” of heavy goods vehicles stopping and starting on the hill which leads up Buxton Road.

Councillors, in an increasingly animated discussion, voted for the council’s leader, Cllr Garry Purdy, to write to the county council leader Cllr Barry Lewis and the highways cabinet member Cllr Kewal Singth Athwal to urge for the issue to be made a priority and for fast action.

In April’s meeting, councillors had already been complaining of a three-and-a-half year wait for air quality issues in Ashbourne to be tackled.

At the time, Mr Braund and Cllr Purdy had said there had not been a delay and that the process had not taken too long.

Both Mr Braund and Cllr Purdy were pushing for pressure to be put on the county council to get the process moving.

Peter Dobbs, who has been campaigning for air quality improvements in Ashbourne for years, said the reaction of the resi- dents to the latest report (showing no formal progress) was “is that it”.

He said concerns at the speed of the process were widespread and that this was “disappointing” seven months after declaring an AQMA in the town, asking “why has so little been done?”.

Mr Dobbs welcomed the “frustration” shown by Mr Baund in his report outlining the lack of progress. Mr Braund confirmed that air quality in the problem zone continues to show it is above acceptable levels of nitrogen oxide.

Cllr Mike Ratcliffe said there was an amount of “procrastination” going on with the county council’s work to manage the problem area. He reminded councillors that it was the district council which was responsible for the issue overall, saying: “God forbid there be any issues or tragedy arising from this.” He said the council could find itself brought before the courts for “negligence”.

Cllr Ratcliffe encouraged the county council cabinet member for highways to “get off his backside” and make the issue a priority.

Cllr Purdy said: “I can assure you I am going to put the pressure on (the county council).”

Air quality monitoring equipment has been in place by the district council at key sites across Ashbourne for at least three years.

These show that Buxton Road has a level of nitrogen dioxide – which can cause lung conditions – which is persistently far above the Government’s standard of 40 micrograms per cubic metre.

The levels of nitrogen dioxide are frequently dramatically higher than 40 micrograms per cubic metre, reaching 62.03 in January 2020.

This makes it the most polluted area of Derbyshire.

Tests show that the site was over the safe limit for every month of 2019 and January, February and March in 2020.

The lowest average level recorded from January 2019 until lockdown was 41.21 micrograms per cubic metre in April 2019, still above acceptable maximum levels.

The area of Ashbourne which has now legally been designated a problem air pollution area now joins a part of Derby as the only two assigned areas in Derbyshire.

There has been procrastination with the county council’s work to manage the problem.

Cllr Mike Ratcliffe