Environment plan puts spotlight on roadside pollution

Councillors hope to keep Tenterden green

Protecting school children from roadside pollution is just one of the targets of a new environmental plan for Tenterden.

The town council has established a sub-committee that will be working to keep Tenterden green.

Cllr John Crawford’s report heard at a meeting of the council’s external committee stated: “As a responsible town council, it is our duty to work tirelessly for our community to implement positive changes as a contribution to managing climate change.”

Councillors are looking into setting up an air pollution monitoring scheme, together with the University of Kent’s centre for health service studies, focused on the area around Homewood School and St Michaels primary school, in Ashford Road, where traffic congestion is greatest.

A report by Cllr Justin Nelson said if studies were carried out it “will give us some hard evidence as to the extent of pollution on Ashford Road outside the schools there – we would then need to decide what (if anything) should be done about it, but without the baseline evidence we can do nothing.”

Cllrs Crawford, Kate Walder, Lisa Lovelidge and Roger Quinton are looking into the air pollution monitoring scheme.

The town council is aiming to ensure all its activities are carbon-neutral by 2030 and wants to bring the subject to the top of the agenda and involve residents in helping to make it happen.

In other green initiatives, Tenterden is in the process of establishing a Neighbourhood Plan to preserve its countryside and ward off unwanted housing development, while the town hall itself will be insulated and its heating is to be upgraded, in order to make it a more environmentally-friendly building.

In July, Ashford Borough Council rejected a call to declare a climate emergency - but made a commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

Numerous authorities in Kent including Swale, Maidstone and Canterbury declared a climate emergency in 2019.

But despite the trend, councillors at Conservative-led ABC voted against the motion, with council leader Gerry Clarkson saying he was “against declaring a climate emergency”.

“Not because I don’t think it is important but I would like to pass a motion that actually sharpens up delivery,” he said.

“We are saying our town is going to be carbon neutral by 2030 and to be the first to get to 80% by 2025.”

The town council hopes to protect school children from roadside pollution in Tenterden

Pollution will be monitored around Homewood School