EIR 2004 enquiry
Dear FOI Officer,
Simon Oldfield anticipates that my request for some of the information regarding the SEMMMS air quality projections may not be not be held by SMBC.
Please see my original request to SMBC below. Simon suggests Greater Manchester but Disley is in Cheshire East.
If you indeed hold the relevant information for your area could you please answer the questions one and two from my original request.
The data sets alluded to are described as pollutant levels at ‘properties’ but property is not a term referred to in the Air Quality Directive (DIRECTIVE 2008/50/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 21 May 2008 on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe). Are these data sets indented to support the proposition that SEMMMS will contribute to reducing current breaches of the Directive?
SEMMMS have also produced NO2 pollution maps that seem to show that when he road opens many new Directive breaches will occur along the A555 between the A34 and Woodford Road, Bramhall.
Kind regards,
Steve Houston
Poynton
Cheshire
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In the course of the second phase of the public consultation the SEMMMS team made the following statements
Along the route of the scheme, there will be areas where annual average NO2 concentrations exceed the limit value specified in the UK Air Quality Strategy. However, should the scheme be granted consent, air quality modelling indicates that a far greater number of properties will benefit than will be disadvantaged in air quality terms as traffic is diverted away from existing congested roads with air quality objective exceedances to this purpose designed by-pass.
A large number of properties within the greater Manchester area and Cheshire East currently exceed annual average NO2 objectives due to local traffic movements. A number of properties in Disley are predicted to experience an increase in pollutant levels if the scheme goes head with 3 additional properties exceeding the air quality objective as a result of increased traffic in this area. However it is predicted that 780 properties in Greater Manchester will be removed from exceedance as a result of the proposed scheme as traffic levels in those areas is reduced.
Moreover the 780 properties represent only 18% of the properties experiencing exceedances in 2017. It is very surprising that properties experience exceedances because although some roadside measurement sites are recording exceedances the levels drop away rapidly further from the road.So these projections imply a very serious health problem.
1) The locations of the properties predicted to experience exceedances with or without the road. Of these please identify schools and properties that fall outside the scope of the air quality directive (eg factories and industrial installations). For each property please identify the position selected to be representative of the property (eg worst affected boundary, worst affected building facade).
2) The predictions for the roadside measurement sites in the areas affected by these high predicted levels.
