Crucial Dates

• April - formal consultation on Air Quality Action Plan

For the campaign meeting in Newbridge, do we have a set location @richarddaniel?

Also, are we each going to contact members to ask them to come along?

Hi @all we need to get our feedback in for the Air Quality Action Plan very soon. Has anybody had any thoughts on this at all?

There are limits as to what I can do at present as I've some family stuff occupying me.
If this doc is to be for the whole of WECA then it needs to say so and specify the cities/towns involved by name. Maybe it should also refer to the independent Let Bath Breathe, Let Bristol Breathe etc. campaigns.
The technical stuff is good and needs to be there but I think there is also a need to respond to this specific statement in the invitation to the first WECA meeting.

“It is now our task to ensure we establish robust systems, including scrutiny and audit, that can help ensure the benefits of the deal can be used effectively within the region. We will also plan ahead to secure even greater opportunities offered by future devolution deals.”

The difficulty with plans to improve air quality and sustainable travel in the past, as I understand it, has been of good intentions but very limited impact. With no oversight or influence over the transport planners, their priorities are almost always about traffic flow, in particular for private and commercial vehicles, with virtually no attention given to sustainable, active, non polluting forms of transport that are in the interests of environmental quality and public well being.
The lack of good quality evidence is cited in the Defra May 2016 report as a major obstacle to implementing schemes.

https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat05/1605120947_AQ0959_appendix_1-evidence_review_on_air_quality_effects_of_transport_measures.pdf

But they conclude:
"Indeed, the evidence suggests that greater reductions in NOX and improvements in air quality may occur when a number of measures are integrated and packaged together. For example, a low emission zone designed to target the higher polluting vehicles can be supported by a package of complementary measures. Such complementary measures can include: improvements in walking, cycle, bus and train facilities; traffic management and pricing mechanisms (to discourage, for example, zone peripheral parking, and peripheral cut through routes); and incentives to encourage uptake to meet vehicle emission compliance such as retrofit or scrappage schemes. If designed appropriately, such measures not only reduce air pollutant emissions but can also provide climate change benefits as well as wider benefits such as noise reduction, congestion alleviation and economic development."

I think a goal must be to establish robust scrutiny and audit systems for environmental quality, based on good evidence, which do not merely inform transport planning but drive it. A question might be how would WECA ensure such systems were in place.

Quite how one makes this accessible and punchy to an electorate is a bit of a task but not impossible. Something about giving teeth to the planners who look after the well being of the people who live in a place, rather than those who drive through it.

Thank you David! I will take on this feedback and try to formulate something to send to them.

If anybody else could give me some feedback too, I would appreciate it.

A low emission zone (LEZ) means banning certain HGVs which gives the Tories ammunition for a link road as an alternative route is a legal requirement (at the moment - a Green Mayor might be able to change that).

So LEZs and outright bans would contradict our desired policy on road building. A congestion charge, however would just make it more expensive and, so HGVs that use Bath as a short-cut because it is cheaper on fuel would go another way.

Having said that, most HGVs are low polluting - the vehicles that would be worst affected would be private cars and local business vans.

The simple, punchy, phrase I would suggest is along the lines of "Get People Moving: people on foot, people on bikes, people on buses" - maybe a play on Ben Howler's infuriating "Stop Bath Stalling" but with substance and honesty in ours (obviously!)

Thanks @vipulpatel

Interesting news about clean air from FOBRA, Federation of Residents Associations:

"The BBC is concentrating on Air Pollution and the consequential hazards to our health throughout Monday 6th March, across both radio and TV, called “So I can breathe”. In particular, in “Inside Out” on BBC1 at 1930, the first feature will be a short film about air pollution in Bath. Happy viewing!"

Oh that's interesting! I will have to watch that.

info here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08h4m30