Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Interesting data in Haringey's draft clean air plan
Haringey Council have just released their draft Clean Air Plan for consultation. I was interested to see the principal causes of pollution in the borough. There's no surprise that Traffic is the leading culprit. but it was interesting to see that commercial cooking and wood-burning stoves also rank among the top five in both the PM10 and PM 2.5 graphs.
Full report attached. Respond to the consultation at https://haringeyairquality.commonplace.is.
Tags for Forum Posts: air pollution
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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HUGH, thanks for posting this, about the council's draft air quality action plan.
In order to put it into perspective, it is helpful to review the council's Greenest Borough Strategy (downloadable file attached at foot).
The council's 50-page document is truly impressive and beautifully produced.
Page 26 seeks to "Review and update the Council’s Air Quality Management Action Plan and page 35 is titled, Promoting Sustainable Travel, including air quality.
It is all thoroughly worth reading!
In the same way that the Greenest Borough Strategy was shelved, forgotten and gathers dust, there can be no confidence that the council is likely to do anything meaningful with the current air quality action plan.
The council leader is at least indifferent to environmental issues, if not hostile.
The municipal sclerosis is strong, chronic and unrelenting.
17 years ago, Sustainable Transport was the buzz word. It was honest of the council to drop this expression, because there was little sustainable in the council's transport polices since 2007, and there is no realistic prospect of improvement for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately.
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Greenest_borough_strategy.pdf, 2.8 MB
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Permalink Reply by JulieB on
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Would be interesting to see if the stats change after 2021 which was when ULEZ was extended to the North Circular, I seem to remember reading that traffic pollution went down by something like 45%.
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Permalink Reply by Haringey Fixers on
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One response people might consider is to contribute data obtained by measuring your own environment. Sensors are getting cheaper all the time. You can start by using your phone to measure noise and light pollution for example. You could put one in your garden if you have one, and collaborate with neighbours to monitor your street. If only the raw data the Council collects was freely available!
Bloomberg Philanthropies of all people sponsored hundreds of sensors all over London that measure Nitrogen Dioxide and 'Particulate Matter' every five minutes using Clarity Sensors. The data is freely available via breathelondon-communities.org, having been validated and refined via a complex algorithm crafted by Imperial College.
Healthy Streets North Tottenham put a Clarity sensor up at the Shelbourne Road end of Carbuncle Close (map here and data here) and we did the same on the Broadwater Farm Estate, outside the school gates - (map here and data here).
Both pre-LTN and pre-school streets.
Monitoring our N17 data, even though we're next to a big park, with construction pollution still at a minimum, the World Health Organisation guidelines have been consistently broken most days over the last few years for Nitrogen. We're generally within the UK guidelines, which to me means they're not strict enough.
You may recall London was on the brink of being sued for air pollution levels by the EU just before we left.
It seems quite difficult to assess the data: it demands a scientific approach. Studies have shown that one of the most polluted places is the kitchen. Quite a lot blows in from abroad and, surprisingly to me, 'Volatile Organic Compounds' (such as from Trees) are considered harmful.
So we have our work cut out to pinpoint where the most effective action needs to take place.
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Permalink Reply by e on
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Thanks so much for sharing this Hugh and for the knowledgable replies, I had no idea about any of it. I wonder if there is going to be an updated report as the stats are from 6 years ago, many thanks Eileen
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Thanks for sharing this!
Some days Green Lanes is visibly smokey - there's a huge number of charcoal grills being used in the restaurants down there. It doesn't surprise me that they contribute to PM2.5. There's no mention of addressing this in the action plan. Presumably it's a very localised problem - just areas with large numbers of grilling restaurants and anywhere immediately down-wind of it.
Our council is far behind others in London when it comes to electric car charging. I drive a petrol car. I'd love to have an electric one, but the density of chargers in the area (and their high cost) makes it not make sense. Other boroughs have slow chargers on every lamppost - why hasn't Haringey managed this? Other boroughs are trialling pavement gullys to allow home charging for terraced houses - why hasn't Haringey trialled these?
We are equally dragging in cycling infrastructure. The ride from Turnpike Lane to Manor House is by far the worst part of my commute into central London. I know there are geographic constraints - but a huge part of the problem is the parked cars on Green Lanes. Once congestion builds up there's no way to get through on a bike without weaving between cars. Why haven't Haringey taken any steps towards fixing this?
The number of cars parked on Green Lanes is tiny compared to the number of people walking up and down it. The normal argument against removing parking is that it will stop people driving to the shops. But I'd bet 98% of green lanes foot traffic didn't get there by parking on Green Lanes.
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