Agenda item

The Committee considered the joint report of the Corporate Director of Resources and the Corporate Director of Regeneration and Local Services that provided Members with background information on the progress made on the Durham City air quality action plan measures, the air quality elsewhere across the County and traffic improvement in Durham City (for copy of reports, see file of minutes).

 

Ms D Holman (Pollution Control Manager), Mr D Gribben (Senior Air Quality Officer) and Mr D Wafer (Strategic Traffic Manager) were in attendance to deliver a presentation that highlighted the following points:

 

·       Update on air quality in Chester-le-Street and Durham City over the previous 12 months.

·       Monitoring in Chester-le-Street

·       Monitoring in Durham City

·       Progress on the implementation of the Air Quality Action Measures

·       A review of the Durham City Air Quality Action Plan

·       Tasks to be completed during the next 12 months

·       Traffic volumes on Leazes Road, Sep to Nov 2019

·       Before and after photographs of Leazes Bowl Roundabout and Gilesgate Roundabout

·       Urban Traffic Management and Control Information

·       Transforming Cities Fund – Durham City Proposals

 

Following the presentation, the Chair thanked officers for a very informative presentation and asked members for their questions.

 

Councillor Brown referred to the air quality action plan and commented that it did not seem to be making progress and highlighted that she had a number of questions from residents that she would e-mail direct to the officer following the meeting. She then asked when SCOOT had been implemented as she was under the impression it had not yet been switched on.

 

Mr D Wafer responded that the SCOOT system had been there from day one and was implemented when traffic issues are out of the ordinary, He continued that there had been an ongoing comms issue with the SCOOT system, but that had been resolved and the system had been stable for the last couple of months.

 

Councillor Wilkes commented that a plan had first been asked for in 2009, the air quality management area declared in 2011 with the plan taking 5 years to be put in place. The pollution area had been extended in 2014 and now it had been further extended again to include Church Street where a lot of young people lived and there was also a school. The failure to address air quality had been a failing of the unitary authority who had failed to act quickly enough to tackle this issue. The implementation of the plan had been delayed due to funding; pollution was a problem that was killing people across the country. An urgent education campaign was required and more funding needed to address this issue. Residents were calling for no car days and one should be held this Spring and every month going forward. This Council removed electric buses from the cathedral route, electric buses were needed on the park and ride routes. He referred to action measure 6 and commented that the biggest employers in the city did not have travel plans and suggested that these companies needed to be listed on the council’s website with questions asked about their travel plans. He then asked how many employees in Durham County Council knew what was contained in Durham County Council’s travel plan and continued that 1000 cars are parked at County Hall with no parking charges for employees or members however nurses and NHS staff were paying to park at the Hospital and that the council’s solution was to have the council headquarters in the city centre which was going to cause further problems.

 

In response, the Chair indicated that there was an air quality action plan in place, so progress had been made. SCOOT was also in place but the impact of a reduction in funding had made it difficult to fund measures to reduce carbon emissions, but things were improving.

 

Mr Wafer referred to the monitoring of sites that were exceeding the annual mean national air quality objective and commented that most areas were below the threshold. He then referred to Church Street and confirmed that it was the pinch point that was being monitored and not the area where the school was located. There was a canyon effect on that road but the air quality in the city was generally improving but still had hot spots.

 

Ms Holman indicated that they had to update DEFRA every year on progress, so Durham County Council was scrutinised by DEFRA. The air quality action plan was being reviewed as part of the refresh of the plan. It was unfair to say nothing had been done however funding issues had hampered progress.

 

Councillor Wilkes asked for the current annual means concentrations for Highgate.

 

Officers responded that Highgate was now below 40 µg/m³ and that the area was still included in the air quality management area.

 

Councillor Wilkes responded that Highgate had been over the 40 µg/m³ annual mean air quality objective during previous years.

 

Ms Holman responded that the strategy was in draft, but there was an approval process to go through before implementation.

 

Councillor Sexton referred to the revoking of the Air Quality Management Area at Menceforth Cottages and commented that he believed that the junction was contributing to the levels and asked if the monitoring devices would remain in place following revocation.

 

Ms Holman responded that the monitoring devices would be kept in place for 12 months.

 

Councillor Sexton indicated that the initiatives had worked and asked if they had any other initiatives such as filters on vehicles and at bus stops.

 

Mr Wafer responded that Durham County Council was looking at options to increase the green infrastructure using plants, trees etc., but more work needed to be done including identifying physical space to put them.

 

Councillor Dunn indicated that the issue was too many people trying to get through the city centre. It was not true to say that nothing had been done as improvements had been made, it was just unfortunate that more and more vehicles wanted and needed to get through the city centre. The solution to these issues was the proposed relief roads taking vehicles around the city together with a move towards a 4 day working week and home working.

 

Mrs Holding indicated that the report concentrated on Durham City Centre and Chester-le-Street and asked about other villages in the County.

 

Officers responded that these were the declared areas, but they did receive requests to look at other areas in the county, but no other areas had been identified as requiring a management area, but network monitoring did extend to other areas.

 

Mrs Holding then asked about cyclists being encouraged to use these busy routes and was concerned about the possible impact of pollution on cyclists using these routes.

 

Mr Wafer referred to some recent research that found that you got more pollution sitting in the car then you did from cycling along the road.

 

Councillor Batey referred to Menceforth Cottages, Chester-le-Street and commented that she was concerned about the revocation and asked if consideration had been given to the new housing development at Pelton Fell as this could potentially have an impact with more vehicles passing by Menceforth Cottages and asked that the monitoring equipment be kept in place.

 

Mr Spencer, a member of the public commented that change towards electric vehicles was small and there was no clear definition of the goal that Government were trying to achieve. Defra accepted a 10% reduction in emissions however there was no clear indication that this was going to be achieved in the near future. The SCOOT system had been given the maximum score for its ability to reduce pollution in Durham City, an equivalent score was given to limiting and stopping diesel vehicles from going through the City but this was totally rejected in favour of the SCOOT scheme with no evidence given for reason for rejection of this option. If the SCOOT system had been shown to have failed in its goal to reduce pollution as it had not increased the speed of traffic flow to reduce pollution, if that major factor in the pollution plan had failed was there any consideration being given at the moment to consider some form of reduction of diesel vehicle use in the city, not just voluntary but imposed as had been done in other cities.

 

The Chair indicated that York were looking into proposals to ban cars in the City Centre. Newcastle had gone through a consultation proposing a Clean Air Charge on diesel vehicles.

 

Mr Wafer indicated that air pollution was not the only reason for the introduction of the SCOOT system. Some authorities were pushed by central government such as Newcastle to do more measures like the introduction of charges because the government were forecasting that they would not be able to meet air pollution targets however DEFRA was not saying this in relation to Durham, we are not in the same category as Newcastle as having such major pollution issues by way of a comparison. He highlighted that Durham County Council’s fleet was taking measures to reduce its carbon emissions and he continued that not everyone was going to have an electric car tomorrow however when you buy a car currently the engine size would be smaller than in the past.

 

Mr Spencer asked the timescales for Durham City.

 

Ms Holman responded that the plan would be updated by 2021 that would refresh the plan and introduce any new control measures necessary. Monitoring results at Menceforth Cottages were below 40 µg/m³ but were hovering at 35/36 µg/m^3.DEFRA’s advice was if the Council could show that levels are 10% below 40 µg/m³ for over 3 years then the plan could be revoked if not then the Council would have had to introduce an air quality action plan. They were looking to refresh, update and amend the air quality action plan for the Durham city and were hoping to have some steer from the local plan.

 

In response to Mr Spencer, Mr Wafer referred to the measures being introduced to combat both congestion by getting people to travel by alternative means which was an ongoing process. The plan and strategy were important but a lot of actions that underpin were ongoing.

 

The Chair asked if there were any targets in place to reduce air pollution.

 

Officers responded that it was difficult to set targets as the monitoring involved only small numbers of properties with a lot of variables that can influence the annual mean results and therefore trends are looked at. He continued that the aim is to get below 40 µg/m³ in those areas.

 

The Chair referred to performance indicators which the committee received on a quarterly basis across a range of Durham County Council services, was there nothing that could be introduced in the form of an indicator and the recording of what action was to be taken in terms of performance to meet those targets. If put relief roads in should be able to estimate how many vehicles would be removed from the city centre as a result of the relief roads and therefore emissions should come down to a certain level in a certain time period.

 

Mr Wafer responded that they could not rely on that modelling to be definite, they knew how many vehicles a relief road would take out and air quality assessments had been carried out that were shown on the council’s website.

 

Councillor Wilkes indicated that he appreciated the modelling that the service carried out, and the belief that the relief road would solve pollution issues. The problems with new roads will always result in more traffic regardless of whether you build new houses. There were proposals to build 1000’s of new houses on green belt land around the city, green infrastructure, trees etc. absorbs carbon, there may not be a specific localised issue in a particular areas afterwards, but if you removed 400 hectares of green infrastructure around the city and build new houses with more cars this did not stack up and highlighted that he was concerned that the Council did not have targets, concerned that there was a plan but no targets or dates for progress and to resolve air quality issues in the city.

 

He then referred to some things that had not been done such as the bus lane on Gilesgate bank that could have been extended but businesses complained, and the authority needed to look at extending this bus lane and continued if it was not quicker on the bus, then people would continue to use their cars. He then referred to smaller buses on the route from Bowburn and commented that he failed to see why the council had not worked with Arriva to get in place electric buses on some of the routes where smaller buses were used. The Council should be assisting Arriva in putting this in place if possible.

 

Mr Wafer responded that bus priority measures were part of the city bid and that Gilesgate was to be looked at. In terms of buses generally the Council would assist operators in applying for grants, but the council could not provide direct funding. The council was currently looking at the park and ride buses and potentially replacing with electric vehicles.

 

Councillor Sexton referred to taxis in the city centre and asked if the council had any leverage such as incentives for operators to change to hybrid vehicles, could Durham County Council offer a reduction on the licence as an incentive.

 

Ms Holman responded that she had undertaken a study focusing on Durham taxis looking look at the percentage of pollution Durham taxis contributed. She continued that Durham County Council’s licensing team only had information about the taxis they granted licences to and therefore the study did not include taxis that may come into the city from other areas. She continued that there were incentives in other areas, but unless it could be demonstrated that there were massive issues with Durham taxis, they were unable to introduce incentives at this stage.

 

Councillor Sexton responded that it was not only about money it was about the environment and initiatives.

 

Ms Holman responded that she would like to use the evidence from the study when the review of the air quality action plan was undertaken.

 

Councillor Dunn indicated that taxis were a frustration particular those that queued along High Street onto New Elvet Bridge obstructing the traffic and those who were stationary with their engines on. He stated that they could look at the most lucrative taxis zones and making those electric only.

 

Ms Holman advised members that the authority had signed up to the regional common emission standards for taxis which would require operators to update their vehicles so fleets in those areas would comply to euro emissions 6 standard for vehicle engines by a certain date.

 

The Chair asked that officers take back that members felt that things were not progressing fast enough, that more needed to be done and that there was a need to consider how targets could be developed to determine improvements in air quality.

 

Resolved: (i) That the report and presentation be noted.

 

(ii) That a further progress report on the management of air quality in County Durham by included in the work programme for 2020/21.