TIME TO CLEAR THE AIR ON CLEAN AIR

It's hard not to have noticed the onslaught of articles popping up in the local news over the past few weeks, regarding the air quality across Greater Manchester.

It is hard to argue that the air we breathe in this region is not full of pollutants. A study by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2018 discovered that Salford on the whole was estimated to be substantially exceeding the limit of acceptability with 15 micrograms per square metre.

This placed our City as holding the unenviable joint title holder of having the worst air quality in the UK alongside Scunthorpe.

The pollution levels in Salford were surprisingly even higher than our larger neighbouring sister City of Manchester.

So with those facts and figures in mind it has quite rightly been seen as an urgency to reduce that pollution as the effects it is having on the general health and well being of the public is utterly staggering. Shortly after the figures released the Friends of the Earth declared it to be a "Public Health Crisis", and they are certainly not wrong.

The City is clearly failing to meet the standards for fine particle air pollution or PM2.5 as it is also termed. The effect on health can have a huge impact with cancer and respiratory disease clearly on the increase across the region.

And so the powers-that-be have been duly and legally obligated to reduce those numbers, provide a cleaner environment and a healthy City for all.

Greater Manchester's Metro Mayor Andy Burnham has decided that the best way forward would be for Clean Air Zones around the City, these areas would require a charge for the most polluting vehicles to access, in general it is thought that the cost would be £7.50 per day for Taxi's and £100 per day for HGV and Buses that do not comply with the standards. It is said that the money raised would go towards aiding companies modify or replace their vehicles with less polluting ones.

Car drivers and those who drive compliant vehicles would not be hit by the charge and so Andy has been quick to declare that this is NOT a backdoor way of introducing a congestion charge.

That has been tried before and it dismally failed after 79% of Greater Manchester voters declared a resounding NO after a City Wide referendum. It even temporarily cost Irlam Councillor Roger Jones his seat as he was the chairman of the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority and seen as the public figurehead of the scheme. Woe betide any politician who tried to implement a congestion charge again.

Some have argued since, that roads have been deliberately engineered to be more congested across the City in order to push to implement a congestion charge at a later date. They evidence this by pointing out traffic calming measures and lane restrictions brought in on many of the arteries in and out of Manchester. Chapel Street being one of prime examples of an area which draws much anger due to the reduction of the carriageway for use as a bus lane, the introduction of speed humps and strict speed limits which some say are causing even bigger delays on the route. Delays which in turn mean more stationary traffic and more pollutants being pumped into the air. It has been said that such measures are counterproductive and undermine any positive gains from the bus lanes.

Regardless of conspiracy theory the stark truth is that in the future we will have a much larger dark cloud looming over our Cities head in the form of the Greater Manchester Spacial Framework or GMSF for short. This second drafting is a clear improvement over its first revision but none-the-less it will still see a huge surge of property building and development on a massive scale across the region.

In some areas like Irlam and Cadishead, large sections of the greenbelt are being carved up for future expansion plans for both homes and businesses. 1,600 homes are earmarked to be built on land close to Irlam Station within Councillor Jones Ward of Irlam, Ironically on what the Council deems to be degraded greenbelt land, the same peat bog that acts as the Cities natural carbon sink. This move has created huge anger that was manifested at the ballot box this year as the candidate for the Core Independents 'Darren Goulden' romped past the finishing line in an embarrassing blow to Labour who have long held the seat.

In the neighbouring Cadishead fellow Core candidate Dave Pike lost out on taking another seat by a mere 64 votes after a tooth and nail battle that saw Labours candidate Lewis Nelson take a well earned victory as a result of an epic battle for the spot.

Full Results of the 2019 Local Elections: https://salford.media/elections/local2019

The people are obviously not happy about it and the cracks are now starting to show.

Councillor Jones's Irlam ward already suffers from historic traffic problems due to its geographical location and the lack of exit routes in and out of the area. The addition of a new lifting Bridge into Trafford has done little to alleviate the problem as people still face delays on the only Salford bound route in and out of Eccles. This is impacted even more when the local Rugby club is playing at its home stadium.

So where do we go from here? On the one hand we have a Metro Mayor telling us that our Cities need clean air, whilst on the other we are being told that our Cities need massive expansion which will in turn mean hundreds of thousands of new properties and countless additional vehicles on the roads across the region. Not to mention the impact of those new homes on already stretched local service.

Irlam is just the tip of the iceberg as homes are scheduled to be built in many other areas, adding to those that have already been built over the past few years and have seen huge impacts on local services and the road infrastructure.

The Salford Star has recently done an article regarding the red flag being waved over the increasing demands for more school places that is more than worth a read. 

http://www.salfordstar.com/article.asp?id=5112

The impact of all these new homes and cars being introduced to the area will more than undermine any gains made by the clean air scheme. We have a ludicrous situation in which we are being told to get out of cars and onto public transport whilst at the same time they are proposing taxes on that same public transport. With a cost of £100 per day each bus that does not meet the new standard will have to pay £36,500 per year to operate in those clean air zones. If those companies only operated 10 buses then that would cost them a staggering £365,000 per extra per year and who do you think those costs will be passed on to? There are clear and justified concerns that ticket prices will increase across the bus networks and that will result in the most likely scenario of the the public being hit in the pocket to cover the losses. It could also have the knock on effect of making people reconsider how they get around Manchester with some possibly opting to use cars.

The need for clean air in our Cities is obviously a priority, the deaths attributed to premature deaths in this region due to air borne particulates is shockingly high and it is only set to increase, something has to be done and it has to be done now.  The tiny particles, emanating from sources such as transport, heavy industry, coal and burning wood, fuels or waste, are very clearly linked to debilitating diseases that include stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory infections. It would be utter madness to stand by and do nothing.

But the reality of the situation is that more needs to be done to improve public transport and entice people out of cars, you simply can not remove trucks and buses from select areas of the region whilst at the same time introducing a potential quarter of a million vehicles by the expansion of the City.

A recent article in the Manchester Evening News details how a town the size of Lancaster is due to be built between Collyhurst and Manchester town centre. Thousands of homes each producing more and more rubbish for landfills, more demand for school places, more demands on NHS services and even more cars. The Northern Gateway Project is set to see over 15,000 new homes built over the next 20 years.

MEN Article: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/manchester-housing-chinese-loan-collyhurst-16455486

Sooner or later something will have to give.

The issue is not so easy to resolve, there will be problems ahead but rest assured it does need to be tackled and sooner rather than later for the sake of the health of the people. Things can not carry on like this.