Issue - meetings

This report provides an update on the actions undertaken following the Cabinet meeting in March 2019 and sets out the decisions required to progress the project as set out within the programme shown in Appendix 1.

Councillor Sarah Warren introduced this item by reading out the following statement:

‘Today, we are launching a final consultation on Bath’s Clean Air Zone. Air pollution causes 140 deaths per day in the UK, as well as being a contributory factor in the onset of heart disease and cancer. It particularly affects the most vulnerable: children and older people, those with heart and lung conditions; and new evidence continues to emerge of its adverse impacts on every organ of the body. Areas with poor air quality are often the least affluent areas. This is why Client Earth took the UK government to court to demand cleaner air, and why I marched with hundreds of others as part of the “Breathe in Bath” demo through the city centre on 16th August this year.

In response to Client Earth’s action and the ruling in the supreme court, the UK government required councils with poor air quality to implement clean air zones. Last autumn, Bath and North East Somerset council consulted on introduction of a “Class D” zone, which would have charged not only HGVs, buses, vans, and taxis, but also private cars, to drive into the city centre. There was a huge response to the consultation, many respondents pointing out the adverse impacts on local families of charging cars, especially in the absence of convenient, affordable alternatives. This prompted the council to revisit the traffic and pollution modelling, and a way was found to avoid charging cars, by introducing traffic lights at Queen Square to limit traffic flows when pollution levels are high in that particular hotspot. This “Class C” scheme is the one on which we are currently inviting comments from the public.

On being elected in May, the Liberal Democrat administration immediately commissioned a brief independent review of the work completed to date. This is a highly technical area at the cutting edge of modelling. Any responsible administration taking on such a project would check to ensure that decisions taken to date had been based on reliable assumptions and data, and that no opportunities had been missed, before spending millions implementing a clean air zone. For the record, the review cost £,9000 not the scaremongering figure of £100,000 cited by opposition parties.

The review confirmed that legally compliant nitrogen dioxide levels are likely to be met under the current proposal, ahead of the extremely challenging deadline imposed upon us by government, of 2021. To be on the safe side, we have stepped up nitrogen dioxide monitoring at numerous sites around the district, so that we can be sure that pollution levels do fall as projected, and will have early warning if they don’t.

I want to emphasise that, as an administration, we would prefer not to charge local businesses, but the structure of the scheme, based around charging vehicles, has been defined by national government. The tight deadlines mean that since taking office in May, we have been unable to make the improvements to the scheme that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 26