More Cycling won't mean fewer HGVs (or less NOx)
Some things are worth waiting for. However the long overdue report from Derbyshire County Council on actions that they approve to tackle air pollution in Ashbourne is not one of them.
Despite having taken over 4 months, it has ignored key considerations that will be needed in the action plan if it is not to be rejected by Defra. These concern timescale and the size of the contribution to pollution reduction.
There is also a lack of focus in the report with the author including the suggestion of the distribution of cycle maps. Even allowing for the fact that he is an enthusiastic cyclist, encouraging more cycling, although a very worthy goal, does not seem to be something that is likely to have a major impact on levels of NOx pollution. It has been established that this has been primarily caused by diesel engined goods vehicles as they climb Buxton Road travelling northbound out of Ashbourne.
Instead we find the report really offers just one solution - the by-pass (or western relief road as it calls it) - but does not even produce any figures of the likely reduction in NOx levels that such a road will offer. Nor does it deal with the likely timescale of such an undertaking.
You can read the full report here.
Quite what happens next is hard to foresee. The responsibility for producing an Air Quality Action Plan (AQAP) belongs to the Derbyshire Dales District Council, with the process being overseen by a Steering Group. They are required to produce the AQAP ideally within 12 months (or at most within 18 months) of the Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) being declared. That anniversary of the Ashbourne AQMA in on April 7th this year.