| Topic: | Re:Air pollution in Putney | |
| Posted by: | Jonathan Callaway | |
| Date/Time: | 05/07/12 21:06:00 |
| Unfortunately this is not a new problem. Our annual allowance of NO2 was exceeded on January 3rd in the High Street. The Putney Society has been campaigning for some time on this worrying issue and one outcome has been a promise by TfL to bring forward the introduction of hybrid and other low-pollution buses on local routes. The Council measures pollution levels in PHS (the kit is in the big box outside Vodafone) and managed to prove to TfL that buses are responsible for 2/3rds of all NO2 emissions in PHS, which is why they responded to us and the Council. That of course means that the other third comes from all the other vehicles and I rather suspect that even if we had cleaner buses the problem would still not be solved. Officially levels of PMs (tiny particulates which can penetrate deep into people's lungs) are within EU limits but some medical opinion has it that there is no safe level of PMs. Over half of PMs come from vehicles other than buses. There was a thread on this issue some time ago and the Putney Society used some of the ideas on it to start a dialogue with the Council. The promises on cleaner buses are we hope just the first a number of measures we would like to see to try and address the problem. The easiest way would to be pedestrianise PHS but that is hardly practical - the traffic has to go somewhere and so longer term solutions need to be found. |