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Protect pupils from pollution
• CAMDEN Council’s complacent comparisons with nitrogen oxide levels in other road side locations are misleading and probably irrelevant. Emmanuel School is virtually the only school in Camden where a very small and confined playground is literally within a few metres of a source of severe air pollution.
A cocktail of poison belches from the cars and buses, which are forced to stop outside the school gates by the new traffic lights. Because of the building‚s layout it is difficult for clean air from other directions to dilute the various harmful gases which are present at the roadside. The only direction for fresh clean air to enter the school is from above.
Most local people will confirm that queues of polluting stationary traffic have increased dramatically since the introduction of the lights, not only in Mill Lane but in all directions including Westend Lane, where several restaurants serve food on the pavement.
Parents don’t need scientific equipment to judge the poisonous exhaust stench which they frequently inhale during relatively short periods they spend outside the school gates or the in the playground.
An average sense of smell is sufficient. Children and teachers who are exposed to it more permanently have got used to the vapours. There is also much additional engine and car horn noise.
The council have failed to carry out a meaningful impact assessment, otherwise there would be documented proof of nitrogen oxide levels prior to when the lights were fitted. In addition the council could easily have recorded evidence of traffic flow data before making the change. It is absurd to cite the excuse that none exist in support of the Council‚s argument that many parents are wrong in demanding a return of the lollipop lady.
It is easy to find photographic evidence of traffic conditions prior to the the fitting of the lights.
Video footage of Mill Lane showing free flowing traffic also exists. The Council are refusing to budge or heed any of the warnings from parents over this serious issue, hoping they will get away unchallenged.
If it proves impossible to get the Council to introduce a sensible alternative to the present situation, some parents might reluctantly apply for a judicial review of the Council‚s and TFL’s irresponsible decision to create a situation which continues to expose over one hundred young children to increased risk of asthma and other respiratory diseases.
The first thing Camden Council should do is to make the full air pollution monitoring report concerning the school available to the public.
R GRIMM
Hilltop Road, NW6
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