Public must wait to scrutinise pollution action plan for town as doubt surrounds its impact
A LONG-AWAITED plan to reduce harmful levels of pollution in the centre of Ashbourne has produced a series of ideas which will have little to no impact, say councillors.
District councillors have met to debate the most recent draft of an action plan to reduce harmful nitrogen dioxide levels in parts of the town centre.
These levels have been formally acknowledged as a human health risk and Derbyshire Dales District Council, in partnership with Derbyshire County Council, has a legal duty to reduce these levels by 20 per cent. It says it hopes to achieve this by 2025.
At last week’s meeting, councillors chose to defer a decision to approve the draft plan for public consultation, choosing instead to wait a month until metrics and priorities for the action plan had been drawn up.
Peter Dobbs, an Ashbourne resident and long-serving air quality campaigner, told the meeting he felt it was “extraordinary” that councillors were being asked to send “this deeply flawed draft report to public consultation”.
He said: “From the perspective of Ashbourne residents it is particularly frustrating that concerns about the rate of progress and effectiveness of most of the actions in the plan have been repeatedly batted away as if our opinions are of little value.”
Buxton Road was officially declared an “air quality management area” in April 2021 and efforts to deal with the issue are still in the planning stages, with no formal action yet taken.
This declaration came after years of campaigning from residents. In February, Cllr Mike Ratclffe called the pace of action to tackle air quality issues in Ashbourne “glacial”.
Mr Dobbs told the meeting that a revised action plan needs to be compiled “which addresses the central issue of HGV traffic”.
He said it also needs to meet the Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) standard.
Defra said it would not accept the draft plan put forward to it by the council, but said the earmarked ways to manage air quality issues were “likely to be effective”.
Robin Curry, an Ashbourne resident, told the meeting he had “extreme concerns” over the “life-affecting” impact of poor air quality in the town. He said the current plan is “merely proposing a number of possible initiatives of a minor nature, none of which are targeted at the largest contributor of the pollution problem – that is that of heavy commercial traffic”.
Mr Curry said the district council needed to press for actions to solve the problem, “rather than enabling the avoidance of this by others”.
Ashbourne Town Council submitted a robust assessment of the Dales district council’s current draft plan, rating the potential effect in five years as “none” for six of the 11 actions, one as “negligible”, one as “small/negligible” and three as “none/negligible”.
The 11 ways in which the council aims to combat air quality issues are to:
● Continue to develop proposals for an Ashbourne Bypass
● Investigate the use of transport technology
● Investigate town centre priority or capacity changes
● Issue pre-emptive travel advice
● Investigate improved tree canopy pollution dispersal
● Improvement to the public realm in St John Street, Dig Street and Compton
● Investigate the demand for electric charging points
● Implement business and school travel planning
● Implement the county council’s bus service improvement plan
● Continue engagement with local mineral and logistics companies
● Enact Active Travel Promotion
Tim Braund, the district council’s director of regulatory services, told the meeting that he acknowledged the feeling that the plan “does not contain enough in the way of direct action”, particularly in relation to banning or limiting the use of HGVS in Buxton Road.
He said: “However, it is the belief of our colleagues at Derbyshire County Council’s transport strategy team that it is entirely possible to reduce pollution levels to comply with the air quality objective by the means outlined in the draft plan.”
Mr Braund said metrics (to measure progress) and priorities for the plan would be available in the next two weeks.
Karen Henrikson, the district council’s director of resources, said Defra had “misinterpreted” the report and had “misperceptions”, saying the authority had been asking for feedback and had not been making a formal submission of its plan saying this is why it was short on the required information and detail.
Mr Braund said the county council is “very confident” about the plan. He said Defra is “optimistic” and so are district council officers.
Cllr Peter O’brien responded: “I was optimistic Ireland would win the cricket world cup. My optimism proved unfounded.”
Mr Braund said “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” and the action plan would be reviewed each year to measure its success, with changes set to be made if required.
Cllr Steve Wain said: “I would have much preferred to see, instead of investigating a fancy piece of technology, we were investigating the potential for weight limits and speed reductions.”
This refers to an aim from the county council to “investigate the use of transport technology” to monitor traffic in the town and provide a smoother flow, which may reduce stopping and starting when travelling up the Buxton Road hill - which worsens emissions.
Cllr Wain also felt it was “totally contradictory” for the county council to advise drivers to take other routes while also detailing there is no other route for motorists to take other than through Ashbourne town centre.
Cllr Neil Buttle asked: “Wouldn’t it be useful to know if we are consulting on something that is going to work?”
Wouldn’t it be useful to know if we are consulting on something that is going to work?