Anti-pollution campaigners have called on Bath and North East Somerset Council to launch a study as a matter of urgency into the illegally high pollution levels along the congested eastern routes into Bath.
Emma Adams, of the Bathampton Meadows Alliance, said: “We know that levels of nitrogen dioxide at Lambridge are way above the legally permitted levels, and have been for several years, and that the measures the council has introduced are not bringing those levels down fast enough.
“Now, the levels of Nitrogen Dioxide on Batheaston High Street are close to the legal limit, and every morning during term time we are seeing longer queues of cars stretching back along Batheaston High Street, waiting to go down to the Toll Bridge, where an extraordinary 4,000 cars are crossing every day. What is this doing to our children’s health?”
The call by campaigners comes as experts from the Royal Collges of Physicians and of Paediatrics and Child Health yesterday issued a report, warning that air pollution is contributing to about 40,000 early deaths a year in the UK.
Professor Stephen Holgate, asthma expert at Southampton University who chaired the reporting group, told the BBC: “When you see cars piling up on the way to school taking their children, the fumes directly from the vehicle in front are being vented straight into the car behind, and exposing their child – and yet we are ignoring this.”.
Professor Holgate called for authorities to monitor pollution levels more closely, build new homes away from busy roads and consider closing particularly polluted roads at certain times.
Emma Adams of the Bathampton Meadows Alliance, which is campaigning to stop the council building a park and ride on Bathampton Meadows, said: “We could all see for ourselves last week during half-term how much emptier the roads were into and around Bath.
“A significant proportion of traffic in Bath is school-related, and yet the council is not tackling this problem.
“Instead it’s proposing spending 9.7 million pounds of taxpayers money, when services are being cut, on building a park and ride that will do nothing to cut pollution, but in fact will bring more pollution into the Bathampton Valley basin.”
Emissions experts have warned that the proposed development of a 1,400 car park on Bathampton Meadows risks pushing Nitrogen Dioxide levels in Batheaston over the legal limit.
“Councils have a statutory obligation to act if these levels are breached, or if there is a reasonable risk that they will be breached,” said lawyer and Bathampton resident, Annie Kilvington, who has studied the issue.
“A planning authority cannot give permission to a development that will lead to a breach of the limit in the area of the development, and B&NES knows this.”