Illustration: Christopher Paul Bradshaw
Here, and in a long strip of Nottingham city centre stretching from the Sherwood Rise roundabout on Mansfield Road to Trent Bridge, but also embracing Canning Circus, Upper Parliament Street and part of Castle Boulevard, pollution by nitrogen dioxide, NO2, regularly exceeds the EU’s permitted safe levels.
NO2 is the brown gas that comes out of fossil fuel power station chimneys, but in urban areas its biggest source is exhaust pipes. It helps create smog and causes wheezing, coughs and bronchitis. It is most dangerous to people with asthma, particularly children and elderly people. A report concerning air quality and health for the Nottingham Health and Wellbeing Board late last year noted that the impact of air pollution in Nottingham from NO2, particulates and other gases was “equivalent to the loss of 1,559 life-years” – 1,559 deaths annually, in other words. For Nottinghamshire county, the figure was 4,270 deaths.
While it has usually been difficult to pinpoint blame on NO2 alone, a study of heart failure by scientists in Edinburgh and Delhi published in The Lancet in 2013, found a link between raised NO2 levels and raised heart failure risk and concluded that “air pollution is a pervasive public health issue with major cardiovascular and health economic consequences…” The Health and Wellbeing Board report also noted, “The health impacts of air pollution are greater than the risks of passive smoking and transport accidents added together.”
Of course, if you ride a bike then it may be that you are more aware of the health issues around air pollution than many other people. And one of the reasons you probably ride a bike is because you don’t want to add to Nottingham’s air pollution problems. In this context, the Dunkirk Flyover achieves a supreme irony since it lies across one of Nottingham’s busiest cycling routes – Nottingham city centre to Beeston – and is at the centre of a polluted area which seems fated to become even more polluted.
Why? Because it’s set to begin carrying a higher volume of traffic through its connection with the newly widened A453 in Clifton. From here, traffic from the M1, Birmingham and East Midlands Airport can speed quickly to the A52 ring road into West Bridgford or west to Derby, via the Dunkirk Flyover. How much traffic will that be? The A453 public enquiry heard that even before dualling, the A453 was carrying 25,000 - 30,000 vehicles per day. Up to 19% of these were HGVs. While the enquiry did not put a precise figure on the estimated traffic increase, it did say that widening of the A453 would cause a large increase in traffic flow.
It seems ironic, to say the least, that all this additional traffic is now being encouraged to add its exhaust pollution to an area of Nottingham which already exceeds European air pollution standards – an area which is also adjacent to the Queen’s Medical Centre. The double irony is that the Dunkirk Flyover lies above one of Nottingham’s main cycling routes and that this area is also host to part of the new tram line. Nobody knows for certain what impact the projected increased cycling and tram use will have on levels of toxic exhaust pollution in Dunkirk and across the rest of Nottingham. But the city council’s estimate, stated in its own 2013 Air Quality Progress Report, is that the planned development of commuter cycling routes as part of the £6.1m Cycle City Ambition programme (see issue #67) will have a “negligible impact” on pollution levels.
Nottingham has had a poor record on air pollution for several years now. A report by the European Environment Agency in 2010 ranked Nottingham as the eleventh most air-polluted city in the EU. London was slightly cleaner, being just one place below in the rankings. Yet, in many ways, Nottingham’s air has been getting cleaner. Levels of sulphur dioxide and benzene have plunged over the past ten years while levels of the particulates PM10 and PM2.5 have also been falling despite spikes in 2011 and 2010 respectively which are believed to have been caused by road and construction work in Lower Parliament Street and near the Victoria Centre. However, NO2 continues to be a problem in two monitored areas called AQMAs (Air Quality Management Areas).
The latest reported figures from permanent monitoring stations, dating from 2012, show that the annual mean levels of NO2 equalled permitted levels at Dunkirk and exceeded them in the city centre. Overall, NO2 levels were going down between 1998 and 2009 but started to rise again after that. Increased road traffic is believed to be one reason for this.
Another set of data comes from a different kind of monitoring device called diffusion tubes. With these, NO2 limits were exceeded at 12 of 23 sites. The limit for NO2 is 40 microgrammes per cubic metre. However, the readings at the top three worst spots were 57 at Canning Terrace, 53 at Upper Parliament Street and 51 at Queens Road. At Dunkirk, the reading at Beeston Road was 41. In addition to these, three areas outside the AQMAS are now also high pollution areas – the junction of Ilkeston Road/Radford Boulevard and Lenton Boulevard; the junction of the B682 Nottingham Road with the outer ring road in Basford and the junction of Castle Boulevard and Abbey Bridge – a main cycling route where construction of a segregated cycling lane is due to start later this year.
It seems incredible that public enquiry into the newly widened A453, published in 2010, concluded that the overall impact on Nottingham’s air quality would be ‘neutral.’ In fact, the report said that air quality in five out of nine AQMAs affected by the A453 would be improved although without stating which ones these would be. Perhaps there was an idea that the additional NO2 and particulates being emitted by the thousands of additional vehicles enticed onto the A52, would be offset by the new cycle lanes and the tram, including the proposed new park and ride at Clifton. But, if so, those calculations remain in the road planners’ heads
It is also worth noting that the park and ride scheme, like the Clifton tram line, is not yet operating, although the A453 in Clifton is certainly open for business. Indeed, one can argue that, given Nottingham’s already poor record on air pollution, the city council’s transport policies now look increasingly schizophrenic: backing ‘sustainable’ travel such as cycling on the one hand while encouraging more cars and trucks to cross the city and make poor air quality even worse.
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