Come Clean on Air Pollution Mr Cameron

The Queen’s Speech appears to have weakened the drive to improve air quality. The proposed “De-regulation Bill” could affect Air Quality Management Areas, such as the M60 motorway corridor that passes through Trafford and Salford. The Breathe Clean Air Group wants to know what the Prime Minister is up to.

Vehicle traffic fumes near Barton High Level Bridge are already 50 percent above the safety limit. The main pollutant, nitrogen dioxide, will also be emitted by the proposed Barton Renewable Energy Plant.

Currently, where local authorities have designated Air Quality Management Areas and are obliged to undertake air quality assessments, it is likely that they will no longer be required to do so, and hence nobody will know how badly polluted these areas will become.

Under the guise of “reducing the burden of excessive regulation on businesses”, nitrogen dioxide from the incinerator and the motorway could worsen air quality and endanger the lives of local children.

“The Breathe Clean Air Group has been campaigning for three years against this controversial, biomass incinerator, which is proposed to be located alongside the M60 at Barton High Level Bridge,” said group Chairman Pete Kilvert. “It will not use best available technology and will have a chimney stack which is only half the height it should be. The health impacts on the local neighbourhood will be devastating”

“Burning wood not only produces toxic nitrogen dioxide” added Mr Kilvert, “but also masses of tiny particulate matter and volatile organic compounds. In the case of the Barton Renewable Energy Plant which intends to burn waste wood from construction sites and waste plastics, there is a real possibility of the incinerator producing deadly dioxins and heavy metals including arsenic. Burning wood also produces 50 per cent more carbon dioxide than burning coal. It does not make sense to have this incinerator built in this location”.