Posted on Wednesday 4th November 2020
Weekday peak time restrictions on cars, vans and lorries travelling west on to the A53 Etruria Road at the junction with the A500 are being proposed by late 2022 to reduce illegal levels of air pollution.
Full details of proposals to reduce illegal levels of air pollution in part of Newcastle are being detailed for the first time.
Weekday peak time restrictions on cars, vans and lorries travelling west on to the A53 Etruria Road at the junction with the A500 are being proposed by late 2022 to reduce illegal levels of air pollution.
Other steps include repositioning a bus stop to reduce queues of traffic, improving pedestrian crossings at junctions and upgrading the engines of buses on the route.
The proposals follow a legal order by the Government to reduce illegal levels of Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), produced by petrol and diesel fuelled engines, on Etruria Road, Newcastle, in the shortest possible time.
Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council were two of 45 authorities ordered to act following a High Court ruling in 2018 that the Government’s plans to tackle air pollution were unlawful. Staffordshire County Council is supporting the work as the highway authority for Newcastle.
David Williams, Staffordshire County Council’s Cabinet member for Highways and Transport, said:
There is a legal order from Government to reduce excessive vehicle pollution in one specific part of Newcastle-under-Lyme to a legally acceptable level.
We understand that these proposed changes will affect some people’s journeys, but this is about improving public health for Staffordshire residents - vehicle pollution is the largest environmental risk to public health in this country and has a disproportionate impact on the young and old, the sick and the poor, causing or worsening a range of respiratory conditions, including asthma.”
The Government presumption was that a charging zone would be introduced unless local authorities could produce traffic-based alternatives which achieve at least the same results in the same space of time.
It’s estimated that as motorists and businesses buy newer cars, vans and lorries with less polluting engines NO2 levels will naturally fall below illegal limits by 2027 and the Etruria Road traffic management scheme will no longer be needed then.
David Williams added:
A charging zone would have cost users millions of pounds.
It would have disproportionately affected poorer residents and those visiting the University Hospital of North Midlands regularly, as well as deterring people from using Newcastle town centre so we have sought alternative ways of reducing Nitrogen Dioxide to acceptable levels.”
The proposals would see a ‘bus gate’ installed at the bottom of Basford Bank at the junction of the A53 Etruria Road with the A500.
On weekdays cars, vans and lorries would not be allowed to travel west through the bus gate towards Newcastle town centre between 7-10am and 4-7pm.
At the same time a westbound bus stop is to be moved from east of Kings Place to opposite the New Vic Theatre, to reduce the volume of vehicles queuing behind, and signalised pedestrian crossings will be provided across all arms of the A53/ Gladstone Street/ Basford Park Road junction and the A53/ Albert Street/ Sandy Lane junction.
The proposals will be discussed at forthcoming scrutiny committee meetings of Staffordshire County Council, Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council and Stoke-on-Trent City Council, before being considered by the councils’ cabinets.
Notes to Editors
Newcastle-under-Lyme BC is delivering an engine retrofit programme for buses operating routes 4/4A along the A53. This is being delivered as part of a separate Newcastle Ministerial Direction, but the modelling for future air quality includes the benefits to air quality that the cleaner bus exhausts provide. Bus access kerbs and level footways as well as real time bus passenger information will also be provided along A53.
Following a High Court ruling in February 2018, the Government issued Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council a Ministerial Direction to reduce levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in their areas to below 40µg/m3 (micrograms per cubic metre). Staffordshire County Council is supporting as the highway authority for Newcastle.
In the North Staffs Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) area in 2018/19 more than 14,300 people had asthma. In the same period there were 210 adult emergency hospital admissions for asthma – a rate of 121.5 admissions per 100,000 adults, the seventh worst rate in the Midlands.
In the North Staffs Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) area in 2018/19 more than 5,500 people had COPD. In the same period there were 750 emergency admissions for COPD – a rate of 313.3 admissions per 100,000 people, the eighth worst rate in the Midlands.