Act now – consultation extended to 1 April 2024!
Early in 2024, after years of inaction, West Northants Council received a final warning from DEFRA to produce an Air Quality Action Plan, which is seventeen years overdue. This finally spurred the council to draft a plan for consultation. Here’s our response:
Timing
We note that the Air Quality Plan is seventeen years overdue and that West Northants produced this draft after receiving a final warning from DEFRA.
Private car use
Air quality can only be improved by reducing the number of journeys taken by car. 40% of these are less than 2 miles and 58% are less than 5 miles. If we had safe and convenient active travel infrastructure, these distances could easily be walked or cycled. Having just a small proportion of these short journeys walked or cycled instead of driven would make a dramatic difference to air quality and also reduce road congestion for those who have to drive.
Air Quality Monitoring
West Northants promised to install new air quality monitors in a number of locations using a grant from central government. However, the sensor at the junction of Kettering Road and Park Avenue North is still not up and running, yet the council’s press statements imply that all the monitors have been deployed. This lack of urgency (and transparency) gives us low confidence that the council has any real commitment to take action to improve air quality.
Cycling and walking
We’re pleased that the plan includes commitments to encourage cycling and walking. However, this can only be achieved through providing safe infrastructure. The council needs to make a proper commitment to this. This includes adding safe pedestrian crossing points at all junctions, and building safe cycle routes to schools, town centres, and areas of employment.
Northampton is a long way behind our neighbouring cities like Leicester, Nottingham, Coventry, Birmingham and Oxford, all of whom are building active travel routes into the centre. In Northampton, there are still no safe cycle routes into the town centre, while active travel grants are being used to build paths around Delapre and Abington Parks.
We get what we build for
Evidence shows that building new roads, widening existing roads, or improving traffic flow only creates a short-term improvement in congestion and air quality. Induced demand means that the short-term gains are soon wiped out as more people choose to use the new route because it’s more convenient. Building or widening roads makes air quality worse in the long run.
School traffic
We need to improve air quality around our schools, especially during pick-up and drop-off times. Many towns and cities have implemented School Streets, where the road next to the school is closed to traffic (except residents) during pick-up and drop-off times. There are over 500 school streets in London, and they have been extremely successful in improving air quality.
What’s more, they are changing long-term habits – many more children are walking or cycling to these schools, instead of being driven. We urgently need to implement School Streets in Northampton.
Route Maintenance
In order to encourage cycling and walking we need to have well-maintained routes. The current system for maintaining pavements and cycle routes in Northampton is broken. It always takes many weeks of chasing to get anything done – recently it took 7 months to get a hedge cut that was completely blocking a busy walking/cycling route, and there are routes in Brackmills that haven’t been cut back or swept for many years.
Drive-thrus
If we’re serious about improving air quality we need to deny planning permission for all new drive-thru food outlets. They encourage driving, and they create completely unnecessary air pollution while cars are queueing.
Car-dependent housing developments
Many new housing developments in and around Northampton are totally car-dependent. In some cases, housing is actually fenced off from nearby cycling and walking routes. For example, the new development at Scholars Green is fenced off from Bradlaugh Fields and its network of cycling and walking paths.
These are missed opportunities to create good quality, direct, permeable active travel connections and connect to good infrastructure that already exists and provides good links to employment, shops, and schools.
Transport Budget
The council has recently borrowed £20m of the £40m cost of building a new 2km stretch of road that will increase air pollution and cost taxpayers £1.2m a year on interest payments.
The return on investment for building good active travel infrastructure is considerably higher than for new roads, because it’s a more efficient use of road space (a car uses seven times the space of a bike), it is positive for health and wellbeing (creating savings for the NHS), it improves air quality (more savings for the NHS), and it’s good for retail and hospitality.
Make roads more friendly for walking and cycling
New segregated infrastructure is vital, but it’s not the only way to get more people walking and cycling. Smaller changes that stop rat-running also make it much more likely that people will walk or cycle instead of drive. Traffic filters, 20mph limits, and good signage are low-cost measures that have a significant impact when they are part of an overall network.
Make walking and cycling the natural first choice
The DfT’s Decarbonising Transport (p29) states “We cannot simply believe that zero emission cars and lorries will meet all our climate goals or solve all our problems. They will not… we must increase the share of trips taken by public transport, cycling and walking. We want to make these modes the natural first choice for all who can take them.”
Click here to make your response – feel free to use any of our words above!
Living Streets Northampton 