Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Clean air campaigners fight on
Inside your big-value local paper
Clean air campaigners will find out next month whether they will be able to pursue a judicial review against the Mountfield Park development in Canterbury.
The group is arguing the city council failed to take into account the threat posed to air quality by extra traffic movements generated by the 4,000home development on fields to the south of Canterbury.
Ultimately, they want Secretary of State for Communities Sajiv Javed to overturn the outline planning permission granted to developer Corinthian for Mountfield Park in December.
Calling themselves Switch (Sustainable Ways Integral to Canterbury’s Health), the group is scheduled to take its case to the High Court on May 2 for the 30-minute permission hearing, but it may be postponed because Corinthian is asking for a halfday session.
The court will be asked to decide whether the judicial review will proceed. A judge sitting in February refused to grant an earlier application for permission.
Robert Mccracken, QC, who represents Switch, said: “This was a lazy decision and the absence of any attempt to grapple with our case will make it easier to succeed on a renewed application.”
Switch says that 100 people die a year as a result of the city’s poor air quality, which also breaches ozone levels.
Michael Rundell, one of the claimants, said: “Air pollution is a major problem in Canterbury.
“It is poisoning us all. I am very aware of it in Wincheap, where I live on the main road.
“The most recent records for 2015 shows that Canterbury breached limits in at least four places in its Air Quality Management Area.”
Emily Shirley, who co-ordinates Switch and the drive to raise £25,000 for the judicial review, believes the group has a solid basis for its claim and forecasts an additional 28,000 traffic movements as a result of Mountfield Park.
She said: “Our case is clearly arguable and that is what we will illustrate on the day because the Secretary of State is ultimately responsible for air pollution compliance and needed to have given reasons for not calling in Corinthian, which he did not.”
Earlier this month, the council insisted that it has a sound air quality action plan which was analysed as part of the report planning officers submitted to the planning committee ahead of the Mountfield Park.
Spokesman Leo Whitlock said: “We commissioned specialist advice on air quality and consulted with a number of bodies including Historic England.”