Camden Residents Association have got themselves a blog to join the fight against air pollution in Bath and fight for something to be done to save their area from increased traffic and poor air quality.
l have been to have a look and copy below a relevant part of their on-line campaign:
“Air quality in Bath is illegally poor and has to improve. We believe Camden is more afflicted than is realised, and so demands special attention from the Council.
The extent of the traffic problem has been highlighted in the recently published report ‘Tackling Traffic Congestion and Poor Air Quality in NE Bath’ by the Camden Residents’ Association (CRA).
At peak times, Camden Road is over 50% as busy as the main arterial A4, the London Road, and yet it is a narrow, single track, residential street. The full 1.5 mile rat run through both Larkhall and Camden draws in traffic not only from the East and North but also the South of the city. This traffic passes three schools, uses constricted residential streets and threatens residents and the many commuting pedestrians with illegally poor air quality. At non-peak times air quality recovers slightly, but most drivers exceed the 20 mph speed limit creating other safety issues.
Whilst accepting that poor air quality is a pressing Bath-wide issue the CRA delivered its report at a B&NES Cabinet meeting on 7th February and requested that the Council consider the area of NE Bath particularly carefully.
The evidence-based report is available to read or download on the association’s website www.camdenresidentsbath.co.uk and the shorter cabinet submission is available on their blog at https://camdenresidentsassociationblog.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/our-report-goes-to-cabinet-on-7th-february/
You can also subscribe to our blog, write a comment and offer support below. We really look forward to hearing from you.
We all have a right to breathe clean air… but the Tory Government (and many Tory-dominated local authorities) are in the pocket of the big companies which are making millions out of the new fashion for building waste incinerators up and down the land. Probably the biggest offender is Balfour Beatty, a corporate giant dominated entirely by the god of profit and guilty of many crimes through its brazen disregard for safety… and Balfour Beatty just happens to be a financier of the Tory Party. No wonder they get so many giant public money contracts pushed their way !
Waste incineration is sold to us as a preferable alternative to land-fill, but what they don’t tell us is that the pathetically small quantities of “free” energy (which they sell back to the grid) are only achieved by burning vast amounts of plastic and so-called “high calorific value” material which could equally well be recycled. Thus they pollute our atmosphere with a variety of toxins and particulates (plus vast amounts of CO2) AND divert huge amounts of otherwise recyclable waste straight into their furnaces… simply to make money (from which they not the public see the benefit).
Incinerators are springing up nation-wide, including Avonmouth, Cardiff and Gloucester. More are coming too. The Gloucester incinerator is expected to burn a quarter of a million tonnes a year, producing immense quantities of CO2 (released straight to the atmosphere) and numerous poisonous gases and toxic particulates, some of which cannot be filtered out… every year for the next quarter century at least… thus condemning our children and grandchildren to grow up breathing polluted air.
Soon we will have more incinerators than we need to burn ALL of our waste… so the plan then is to start importing waste from elsewhere… just to make them “more economic” … (which means MORE PROFITABLE for the companies who build and run them.
The impact of mass waste incineration has yet to become obvious… the cancer clusters, birth defects and respiratory diseases have yet to emerge, but the honest scientists who are not being paid off by the incineration lobby know that we are being sold a pup.
Waste incineration is all about profit for already wealthy companies and has virtually nothing to do with public health. The real answer is a huge reduction is production of plastics and a switch to re-useable and recyclable materials.
It is possible to achieve this, but the political is not there. Our present Government is too much in the pocket of wealthy companies and the shabby opposition hasn’t the wit to do anything about this, so fixed are they on trying to seize power and start building a Marxist state.
Let us make our voices heard before our precious atmosphere is ruined by a few unscrupulous, greedy, wealthy men.
Thanks, John. This is slightly off our particular subject in NE Bath, but I do have a personal view on it. Energy recovery, as opposed to incineration is a good thing if nothing else can be done with the waste. I adhere to the waste hierarchy model which I talk about here…
http://bpvocc.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/8-waste-hierarchy-part-1.html