Air quality on the Council's agenda

air quality generic

Cheshire East Council's environment and regeneration overview and scrutiny committee is to discuss papers relating to air quality at their meeting on Monday 17th September.

Documents to be discussed at the meeting,which is open to the public and will be commence at 2pm at Macclesfield Town Hall, include the local air quality strategy, air quality action plan and the low-emissions strategy.

Sean Hannaby, Cheshire East Council director of planning and environment, said: "This is a positive step forward for the council to tackle air quality management within the borough and develop a set of strategic policies and actions to focus on those areas where intervention is required.

"While Cheshire East generally has air good air quality, we can always take action to improve it and these papers set out how we will do this over the next five years.

"Whilst some measures will help to improve the whole of the borough, 17 areas will see additional actions, as they have been identified as air quality management areas (AQMA).

"AQMAs are areas where the levels of nitrogen dioxide exceed the air quality objectives under Part IV of the Environment Act 1995. On assessment, the main contributor to poor air quality in Cheshire East is traffic, with diesel vans and cars a main pollutant.

"Where air quality is poor, it affects everyone. It can have long term impacts on health, with a disproportionate impact on the young and old people. Action to improve air quality and reduce emissions in Cheshire East is welcomed."

The draft documents, which are seeking comments from scrutiny at this stage in the process, outline how Cheshire East Council will actively work to improve the air quality across the borough through a range of activity including:

• Planning

• Traffic management

• Encouraging alternative travel

• Construction

• Low emission transportation

• Education

• Public awareness

Specific measures to reduce the poor levels of air quality in some areas could see vehicle weight restrictions imposed, such as banning HGVs on certain roads, 20mph speed limits or signs encouraging drivers to switch off their engines when idle.

Tags:
Cheshire East Council
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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

Pete Taylor
Saturday 8th September 2018 at 7:41 am
Should the Director of Environment not have resigned over the reportedly deliberate falsification of air quality data produced by his department?
How is that enquiry going, by the way?