Activity and interest is building on air quality in Bath
Several members of the Camden Residents Association (CRA), along with 70 others dedicated a morning to a facilitated event run by Transition Larkhall at the Oriel Hall called “Thinking differently about travel in Bath”. Congratulations to them for sticking to plan despite the snow and it was heartening to see how many people had walked to the event from all parts of the city. This was mainly visionary stuff and very important. I’ll provide a resume of that shortly.
However can I direct you, for a moment, to our new page which sets out the immediate imperative for Bath and why the CRA is so concerned to get its views across quickly. Please click here.
Very poignantly Bath is the only UK city to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the the air quality we offer to residents, workers and tourists is so far below legal standards that the Council has been issued with a special government directive. This is a global embarrassment as well as a public health crisis. The UNESCO site measures its sites across 14 ‘properties’ which include air pollution – see this screen grab from the UNESCO site:
The greatest concerns for the CRA are threefold:
- The full 1.5 mile rat run through both Larkhall and Camden draws in traffic not only from the East and North but also the South of the city
- At peak times, Camden Road is consequently over 50% as busy as the main arterial A4, the London Road, and yet it is a narrow, single track, residential street. Any restriction on the use of the London Road will make our current problems worse without sufficient safeguards.
- The air quality in Camden is not monitored to the same standards as the main sites but is likely to be worse than might be first thought.