Dear John,
Thank you for your response. I am pleased to read there will be more clean buses and this is a small step in the right direction but I have a many other concerns
Please bear with me - this is not my job so I do not have as much time as I want to dedicate to these issues.
1. The LTP was up for review on a public web site, how long was this for, how many people from the public sent in comments, was this a representative sample of people from Oxford? My concern here is that generally I have found using the county, national and oxford government web sites extremely arduous (mostly due to them being PDF dumping grounds and having very poor navigation) so I doubt whether there are more than a handful of people that are even able to work out what you are doing in this area.
2. You say that the county (and I assume Oxford) councils are taking the situation of air pollution in Oxford seriously. Why then is the first mention of any actions in for Oxford on p.183. Why also on this page does it use the language: "Oxford revealed a number of locations where air pollutant levels may have exceeded national air quality objectives" and "The only air quality objective that is exceeded in Oxford is the national objective for the annual mean concentration of nitrogen dioxide..." I am sure you are as aware as I am that Oxford is probably the most polluted city in the whole of the UK. It has consistently been worse than the two other offenders namely Bath and Marylebone High Street. If you are serious about fixing this issue surely it would be more appropriate to use language like: "Oxford has a very serious air pollution problem, it has exceeded all air pollution objectives consistently over the last ten years and has a very serious problem with Nitrogen Oxides. Consequently the levels of Ozone pollution in Oxford are also very serious. Ozone and Nitrogen Oxides are a serious health problem meaning vulnerable people with asthma and heart disease are at a serious risk of being hospitalised or dying and the cost to the NHS is substantial. All cities around the world with levels of Ozone and Nitrogen Oxides on a par with Oxford see increased fatalities in the range thousands people per year. data source:
http://www.airquality.co.uk/archive/reports/cat05/0601311639_Air_Pollution_in_the_UK_2004_-_Part_2_Statistics.pdfMy point here is that it does not help if the people regulating air quality appear NOT to not be taking the issue seriously and especially if they are obscuring the facts. (While Ozone is not a regulated pollutant ("transboundary pollutant") it nevertheless is very high in Oxford and the levels of NOx cannot be ignored as a contributing factor).
3. Why is air pollution or quality only the 4th priority in the transport plan (after congestion, accessibility, and safety. It seems to me that if the local government will solve air pollution by the only way that can every have an effect - which is to drastically reduce the number cars and buses driving around the city then congestion and the other priorities will not be a solved as a consequence.
It seems to me that this is lots of not very innovative steps that are not measurable. With the seriousness of climate change then it is enourmous steps that are needed. It is time to say that bus companies are responsible for the pollution they create. That bus companies MUST share tickets. That cars cannot drive whereever they want and many more streets need closing. Car parks need to be replaced with more parks and sustainable housing. etc.
This report smacks of the same old thing, too little and too late. Oxford has been a serious air quality offender for the last ten years, there has been ample warning, and the measures that have been taken have only ensured traffic flow or tackled congestion and not done anything to make Oxford a more sustainable and healthy city to live in.
As a resident I am ashed to live in the most polluted city in the UK. I was brushed off by the Oxford City Council when I raised this last year. The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1292524,00.html
was rubished by a member of the transport department team. I now see that the governments own statisticss back these findings up so I was right to be appalled.
In short what I need reassuring is that the action plan will produce measurable results in making oxford a cleaner, healthier and more sustainable city. I want to to be reassured that Oxford will stop micro-tinkering and make some bold decisions that will actually have an effect.
My next avenue of research is into any effect the local car manufacturing plants have had on oxford's governance. I dearly hope oxford has stood up to the kinds of commercial corruption that so abhors us when we read about it in stories from America. I very much doubt it, I am sure that Oxford's problems are caused by much more than it being in a low-lying dip in a vale and that there have been priorities given to interests that are far from democratic.
I look forward to your responses,
Regards, Howard Noble
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