Air quality on Lochee Road

The paper showing how much air quality improved during lockdown, showing that things can be done.

I want Dundee City Council to take the delivery of the Low Emission Zone seriously and I want it to be a success.  I also want the council to deal with poor air quality across the city.  I do not care what the schemes are called and I am not bothered whether Lochee Road is in the Low Emission Zone or not but Dundee City Council and its partners need to deal with the often illegal levels of air pollution there.

I put forward an amendment at the Community Safety and Public Protection Committee on Monday evening calling for a report to be brought forward 'as soon as practicable outlining an action plan to improve air quality at Lochee Road.'

 

I want the council to take the people of Dundee with them on this important policy.  We should not be doing things to people we should be doing things with people.

 

I do not think that officers have taken elected members' concerns about poor air quality seriously enough.

What I am putting forward is very important.  We have been at committees year after year and said something must be done about air quality on Lochee Road.  Well let’s do something.

 

I know that officers want us to treat the the figures in appendix 3 on page 8 (above) of the report with caution but they appear to suggest at least one thing that could be done to improve air quality on the Lochee Road.  A substantial drop in traffic led to a substantial improvement in air quality.  I know that these are not comparable events because overall background levels and traffic levels also went down.

 

I want officers to use their knowledge and skills to give us a plan that allows us to see a way forward.

 

Whilst Friends of the Earth are probably bored of issuing the same press release year after year about this.  We have the chance to make a difference.  To do what is right.

 

The Covid-19 pandemic has reminded us that air quality and respiratory health are important.  These are not just difficult to understand figures in an appendix to a council report.  These figures represent pollution contributing to poor health in our city we need to do something about it.

 

I was glad that my amendment was accepted I look forward to officers finding a way to improve air quality for people in our city, for people who walk, wheel, cycle, drive and most importantly live on or near the Lochee Road.