Air Quality Management Area 5 - Pollution in Greenstreet (A2)
Pollution at your address!
https://addresspollution.org/
TAO Ingredients

WHY DOES AQMA5 MATTER? WHY DID SBC TRY TO REVOKE IT??

UPDATE/GOOD NEWS: On 13th March 2024, Councillors in SBC Environment Committee voted against revocation of AQMA3 and AQMA5. The strongest possible defence against revocation was driven by Councillor Julien Speed, supported by Lloyd Bowen. Well done!
Essentially, the proposal fell because the data is flawed, it failed to take into account the SBC Local Plan Review (coming to us between Autumn 2024-Spring 2025) with its promise of many more developments. It was clear the 'revocation order' was premature - bear in mind also that this month (March 2024) sees the installation of a new continuous monitor for Particulate Matter in AQMA5!


DRILLMINISTER RAP - "CHOKE" - well worth listening to. It hits the nail on the head about where we are with pollution.


The Importance of AQMA5

In Planning Guidance, if you have an AQMA nearby its existence supports arguements against over-development that worsens the situation.

BUT, "nearby" means really close. So, AQMA5 protects us in a way that pointing to either Ospringe or Sittingbourne AQMAs simply wont!

In much the same way, the AQMA6 at Ospringe has a weaker influence as you move east towards the A251 and Brenley Corner.

What is missing is a Planning Authority that takes seriously the legal requirement to protect communities with AQMAs against ANY development that adds "cumulatively" the pollution levels created even at a distance. In other words, if a community is trapped along a piece of straight road (as it is between Faversham and Sittingbourne, ALL new housing of any size MUST add to the cumulative harm calculation and development applications should be rejected.

In short, we cannot avoid (mitigate) pollution created by developments between the A251 and A249. So, NO MORE development this side of the two towns should even be contemplated.

On 20th September 2023 (Sittingbourne News), Rich Lehmann (Green Party) is reported patted himself on the back for an Air Quality Action Plan that includes revoking the protection of AQMA5 as SBC Official Policy. SBC is doing this because, it says, five years of data shows AQMAs in Teynham and East Street, Sittingbourne, are "compliant". Central Government policy advice says that Local Authorities have to be confident that their five-year data is consistent and that future conditions will not get worse.


 

We are being treated as second-class citizens - again.

10th October 2023 - Greenhouse gas emissions - 2022 provisional estimates.
Transport is still the rogue-player (but not the only one) when it comes to how we are damaging our health and the planet. I share this provisional report from the Office of National Statistics as yet more data showing that SBC should adopt a more precautionary approach to abandoning residents as SBC works towards revoking AQMA5.

Main points

We refer to residence-based emissions in this release. This is one of three official measures of UK greenhouse gas emissions. Territorial emissions, published by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), is the measure used for greenhouse gas emissions targets. Footprint emissions, published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), account for emissions from trade.

Read the Full Report on-line

We are being treated as second-class citizens - again.


A2 POLLUTION SOURCES INCREASING
15,691 Vehicles per day (July 2022) - up from 14,001 (2019)

Department of Transport (DoT) manual vehicle count on A2 through Teynham/Lynsted
2019 = 14,001 each day (pre-COVID).

24-Hour video was used to update that manual traffic count
between 7.00am, 21st July and 06.59am, 22nd July 2022.
15,691 Vehicles counted manually over 24 hours.
[PDF]

DoT Guidance: manual counts should be recorded on video and take place
on weekdays, avoiding public holidays and school holidays.

If you want to do your own 24-hour manual counts of traffic
along Station Road and Lower Road here are some ideas on how to manage it (PDF)


Professor Whitty - Chief Medical Officer
published his Annual Report on Air Pollution
(8th December 2022).

There really cannot be any doubt that the A2 between Sittingbourne and Ospringe/Faversham should NOT have any further burdens from estate building.

I have linked to the Press Release, the Executive Summary, and the Full Report.

Graphic of pollution harms 2022 Report from Professor Chris Whitty


The Lynsted with Kingsdown Parish Council Response can be downloaded with this link

Stop TAOTeynham Area of Opportunity Website, Regulation 18 UpdateStop TAO
This excellent resource will provide the starting point whenever SBC kicks us again.



Summary Submission to REG18 - The 2021 Battle with Swale Borough Council's madcap schemes.

In case this submission from Nigel Heriz-Smith helps understand the structure of the Reg18 and the key Questions relevant to Swale Borough Council's determination to force Teynham

Area of Opportunity on our communities. SBC's fall-back position in Reg18 is simply to allocate housing on the same plots with the same destructive impact on us. SBC has simply ignored 30% of all comments in Reg19 - disgustingly self-serving and unaccountable.


WHAT IS SWALE BOROUGH COUNCIL (SBC) DOING TO US?

HAS SBC LEARNT ANYTHING FROM REG19, OR THE LATEST REG 18?

The Local Government Association and Planning Advisory Service sets out the 'best practice' standards for all local authorities. Swale Borough Council ignored best practice, no doubt in the hope that we won't notice when they rushed the Reg18 (Issues and Preferred Options) without any regard for national standards of behaviour of local authorities. SBC appears not to understand how to do a good job, so we have to remind them...

Remember, SBC pushed on with the Reg18 Stage earlier in 2022 without having in place key evidence to explain their prejudiced position of "Option 3". There was no traffic modelling, the pollution analysis was out of date, much of their other 'evidence base' was already three years out of date. We were told that we don't need to know the evidence that SBC relies on....

Reg19 'Zombie' Local Plan in 'Autumn' 2022 we must repeat our arguments so we can get them in front of the Government Planning Inspectors, who will understand just how badly residents have been abused since the Spring of 2021.

OTHER THREATS and where to find them...


 

Facebook AQMA5A2Innovation around Facebook. I am instinctively suspicious of Facebook but I have decided to try a Facebook Page in support of this website - https://www.facebook.com/Aqma5a2. My intention (so far) is to share ideas about vocabulary used in planning and pollution. Perhaps also pick on interesting ideas from the news or policy-makers. For those of you who don't 'do' Facebook, I have added a page to this site in which Facebook posts will appear from time to time. Go to my web-page for non-Facebook peeps.


Contact: nigel@aqma5.co.uk

HOW CAN I MAKE OBJECTIONS TO THIS AND OTHER PROPOSALS? There are several options - listed here

We want to Breathe Clean Air

OLD HOME PAGE

My previous Home Page for this website can be reached at this link...in case you need to refer back to the news and documents there for Reg19!


 

Developer Pressure Outside the Borough Plan

  1. QUINN ESTATES plans to belch out more traffic along the A2 - 1,250 homes West of Teynham plus 8,000 homes filling in between M2 and A2 up to Dully Lane and swallowing Bapchild. Follow the new website run by Paul Townson from Teynham.
  2. LYNSTED 19/505036/OUT - NEW - Lynsted with Kingsdown PC flier sent out 3rd November.
    NEW Parish Council Letter objecting to SBC Draft Local Plan - to build 1,400 new homes around Greenstreet (A2) and Teynham Village..
  3. LYNSTED 120: 16/506237/OUT - withdrawn
    KCC Highways and Transportation Response (dated 20th March; Posted 24th May).
  4. SITTINGBOURNE 11,250: South & East of Sittingbourne: 17/506492/ENVSCR - Possible "Garden Community" (really it is "urban Sprawl").
  5. NORTON ASH 67: 14/505933/FULL - old Garden Centre Site

Borough Plan Approved Additions to A2 Traffic and Pollution

  1. TEYNHAM 300+Commercial Properties: 16/507689/OUT - Frognall Lane. This development will have priority at the roundabout on the A2 over all traffic on the A2 travelling west. So we will have an entirely NEW source of congestion flowing back into AQMA5!
  2. TEYNHAM 130: 18/503697/FULL - Station Road
  3. BAPCHILD 600: 14/501588/OUT - Stones Farm, Bapchild
  4. SITTINGBOURNE 540: 15/510254/OUT - Swanstree Avenue
  5. OSPRINGE 250 + 50: 14/502729/OUT - Brickworks & 17/505079/OUT - Western Link/A2
  6. FAVERSHAM 310 + 63: 15/504264/OUT - Perry Court & SW/13/1567 - Opp. Greenways
  7. BRICKEARTH from BARROW GREEN FARM - 760,000 tonnes extraction 30,000 tons per annum for 25 years.

Facebook AQMA5A2 Facebook Page

Domestic wood burners are a major source of PM2.5 pollution. Is it time to dump them? Not really ... read on ... - also on Facebook Page (8th July 2019).

Pollutant concentration at 1 metre


GREEN SPACES - "COFFIN PATH GATEWAY" - a view