IMPROVING AIR QUALITY IN HEREFORD
Questions from Hubert Porte
Hereford — Issues and opportunities (para 2.9) identifies the issue of ‘Area of Air Quality Management (AQMA) within the city along the A49′, the vision for 2026 that ‘Air quality will be improved within the city centre and surrounding area’ and that the way to achieve this will be ‘remove the through traffic from the city, upgrade the inner ring road and improve the environment around the city centre.’
The plans of the council, especially the building of housing estates on locations outside the city will markedly increase motor traffic and congestion. A shopping metropolis in Hereford (ESG or similar) designed to attract shoppers from far and wide is just about the most effective way of increasing such traffic.
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION REGULATIONS REQUEST – EIR396 [answered 23rd December 2010]
a) What are the Council’s statutory obligations for managing Air Quality?
Herefordshire Council has a statutory duty to review and assess its air quality on an annual basis. This is laid down in Part 4 of the Environment Act 1995. There is no statutory requirment to lower pollution levels, only an aspirational aim to do so.
b) How many days a year is it in breach of statutory Air Quality standards? Please give locations where these breaches occur.
Herefordshire are required to review and assess the pollution levels of 7 pollutants, as required by statute and approved technical guidance. Only one objective is urrently exceeded for one pollutant, namely the annual mean for nitrogen dioxide.
There are 9 sites which exceed the annual mean objective of 40mg/m3 for Nitrogen Dioxide. Of those 9 sites identified, those that reflect relevant public exposure are at:
- Victoria St, Hereford
- Victoria St,/ Whitecross Road, Hereford
- Bargates, Leominster
c) What reduction in motorised traffic has the Council calculated would enable Hereford to meet its Air Quality obligations, on each road junction or link at which Air Quality standards are now breached or are near being breached (please list these and indicate which category, breached or near breached, applies to each junction or link)?
The Hereford City Air Quality Action Plan is self explanatory and provides much detail on this. It can be found at http://www.herefordshire.gov.uk/environment/pollution/27804.asp
This report models the impact of the various action planning proposals on the pollution levels required to reduce NO2 below 40mg/m3. However, the report does not model the traffic flow reductions needed, as this was not required by Defra’s guidance, the government dept tasked with coordinating this role for all UK local authorities.
d) By how much will the Preferred Option reduce traffic and therefore contribute to meeting the Council’s Air Quality obligations on each of these roads?
This work has not yet been carried out. The Hereford City Air Quality Action Plan was completed in 2008 and looked at the impact of links 1, 2 and 3 of an outer-distributor road. It did not consider the impact of a preferred route, as none had been identified at this stage.
Chapter 12 of the Hereford City Air Quality Action Plan provides the traffic flow data predicted by TPI consultants on which the action plan modelling was based.
