New Pollution Record for Ashbourne

The wrong sort of new record has been set on Buxton Road in Ashbourne with a 'raw data' reading of almost 76ugm-3 of NOx. Even allowing for data correction that is well over 1.5 times the 'legal limit'.

This new pollution hot spot was identified at the top of Buxton Road, close to the cross roads with Windmill Lane and North Avenue and beats the previous 'record' set in January 2020.

Despite these record levels of pollution no measures have yet been put in place to mitigate the problem, although this is supposed to be part of the District Council's Corporate Plan.

As readers may recall Buxton Road and part of St John's Street in Ashbourne were made an 'Air Quality Management Area in May 2021. Once declared it was then a legal obligation for the District Council to create an 'Air Quality Action Plan' that would propose measures to reduce the pollution to legal levels.

However it appears that a promised opportunity for Councillors to make comments on the draft 'Action Plan' that has been developed by a steering group comprised largely of County and District Officers has been lost. Speaking at the June Community and Environment Committee of Derbyshire Dales District Council, Tim Braund, Head of Regulatory services, assured councillors that they would have a chance to scrutinise the draft plan and make comments at the September committee meeting.

It now appears that the draft plan has already been sent to Defra for approval! This would not be quite so concerning to local residents, in particular those who live on Buxton Road, if it were not for the fact that most of those who have seen the draft plan do not believe that it will produce any significant reduction in pollution until the relief road is built. In the present economic climate, funding for that road is far from certain.