Councils told to introduce a controversial bus gate and clean air zone in North Staffordshire are seeking Government approval to work up alternative solutions.
Daily Focus has been reporting all week on how the schemes planned for Etruria Road (Basford Bank) and around Stoke-on-Trent city centre have alarmed business leaders and owners.
But the Government has said they are necessary to reduce illegal levels of air pollution in the vicinity and want them implemented by 2025.
Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce has written to the Government saying the schemes were like using a “sledgehammer to smash a nut” and asked for a total rethink.
Now the three local authorities responsible for implementing them – Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council and Staffordshire County Council – have shed further light on their own positions.
Speaking on behalf of all three, Councillor Carl Edwards, chair of the joint advisory committee on air quality, and cabinet member for environment at Stoke-on-Trent City Council, said: “The city and borough councils are under ministerial direction to tackle illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution on Etruria Road and on Victoria Road in Fenton.
“We have written to ministers following our review of ongoing and predicted pollution levels, seeking support to identify and deliver solutions that are more proportionate to the scale of the pollution that is predicted to exist in 2025.
“We await a response from ministers, and in the meantime, under instruction from the government’s Joint Air Quality Unit (JAQU), we continue to progress the business cases for the Etruria Road peak period bus gate and the Clean Air Zone Class C for Victoria Road.
“We are also progressing other improvements to support air quality, including the retrofitting of buses that use Etruria Road and Bucknall New Road with technology to reduce exhaust emissions, and also the pollarding of trees on Basford Bank which should help the dispersal of pollution in that area.”
A council spokesperson also said that the modelling of air quality takes account of the newly opened Etruria Valley Link Road, which will reduce the number of goods vehicles using the Basford Bank roundabout.
They added that HGVs were not exempt and that the bus gate would not operate at weekends, in response to concerns raised by businesses.
