CITY’S MOST POLLUTED STREET... AND HOW IT COULD BE FIXED:
BOLD ideas including charging drivers to enter Cardiff’s most polluted areas should be considered to tackle pollution in the city.
A suggestion to introduce Londonstyle Low Emission Zones, where charges are levied for drivers to enter an area which is not “green” enough has been put forward by councillors.
Plans to stop buses from using Westgate Street, the most polluted area in the city, if they fail to meet key emissions standards are also being considered. When the city council demolished the bus station, extra bus stops were installed on Westgate Street.
Much delayed plans for a new bus station at Central Square have been put forward with no start date yet published.
Environmental charity Client Earth found last year that nine Cardiff schools are located within 150m of roads with potentially harmful concentrations of nitrogen dioxide.
Westgate Street has the highest levels of nitrous dioxide in Cardiff, the meeting was told.
The council’s environmental scrutiny committee wants to consider plans to gradually restrict the type of buses using the street – so that eventually only those which meet emissions targets can drive in the area.
Committee chairman Councillor Ramesh Patel said: “Sometimes you have to use the big stick to encourage people to invest in the vehicles they are going to buy.
“There should be a clear timetable giving x number of years to encourage these companies to convert some of their fleets.”
An Oyster card-style system, allowing passengers to board trains and buses with a single ticket, could also be extended across south east Wales if proposals in a review by the council’s environmental scrutiny committee are brought forward.
The draft review is also recommending improving public transport links in Cardiff and surrounding areas to discourage commuters from driving into the city, and increase the number of charging points for electric and hydrogen vehicles in the city.
Cardiff council currently does not provide any charging points at all for either electric or hydrogen vehicles, a task and finish group set up by the environment scrutiny committee has said.
The only charging points in the city are provided by private businesses, such as Ikea. Cardiff council also has just one electric vehicle in its fleet.
Richard Bowen, principal scrutiny officer for Cardiff council, told the meeting: “We probably need to think about getting more than one.
“We can’t start telling other organisations to start doing what we are not doing.
“Cardiff has absolutely no hydrogen infrastructure. There are three fuelling stations in Wales. Without more infrastructure the hydrogen market won’t grow.”
Air pollution is linked to around 40,000 deaths in the UK every year, a report from the Royal College of Physicians has found.
There are 90,000 commuters travelling into Cardiff every working day from outside the city boundary and 72,000 are by car, according to the council.
Coun Patel, a former cabinet member with responsibility for transport, told members at a meeting on Tuesday he wants Cardiff council to work with other local authorities to address the amount of commuters driving into the city.
He said: “These are commuters who are coming into Cardiff. We can’t do a lot on our own. Some authorities are not dealing with it in a proactive way. If you ask these local authorities to fund it they will say ‘no, we have got other priorities.’ The Welsh Government should be taking the lead on this.”
The committee will discuss the review again on Tuesday, April 17, and hopes to put forward more detailed plans to Cardiff council’s cabinet on the Thursday, April 19.