The Pinkham Way Alliance, which is campaigning against industrial use of a nature conservation site adjacent to the North Circular Road, is participating in a London-wide study into air quality. If the monitoring confirms that the air near this stretch of the A406 is already very seriously polluted, this will help strengthen the campaigners' arguments against use of the site for processing household and industrial waste, which would inevitably result in even more lorry traffic along the North Circ.
Despite assurances from various quarters that plans to build waste-processing facilities at Pinkham Wood have been abandoned, the site is listed as a potential waste site in a newly revised draft of the North London Waste Plan which is to go out to public consultation this month. Possibly with the intention of disguising this, the site is listed in the new draft as "Friern Barnet Sewage Works" - a reference to an entity which has not existed for many decades.
The full text of the PWA's press release is reproduced below.
PWA partners with University College London’s Mapping for Change to monitor pollution along A406 Pinkham Way, and show the necessity of the green Pinkham Way site
22 July 2015
Pinkham Way Alliance (PWA) has been approached by University College London’s social enterprise, Mapping for Change, to partner in a London-wide air quality study. As its part in the study, PWA will gather evidence about the deeply concerning levels of pollution in the residential areas around the A406 Pinkham Way, which includes the highly contentious Pinkham Way nature conservation site. As well as being a site of Borough Importance for Haringey, it has a wider significance as a London Priority Habitat.
The importance of the study is underlined by research published this month by the Mayor of London showing that, every year in London,9,500 early deaths are caused by air pollution — more than the number of deaths caused by smoking.
Although the area along the A406 Pinkham Way has already been identified as a pollution hotspot, local authorities do not monitor it. A local residents’ association undertook a study of NO2levels over the course of a year, and recorded an average reading that was well over 100% above permitted EU levels. NO2 is one pollutant emitted by traffic.
Pinkham Way Alliance chairman, Stephen Brice, said: “These readings show how the area is already suffering from chronic pollution owing to the day-long A406 congestion. If Haringey Council is in any way serious about the health of its residents, it must act to preserve rare green spaces such as Pinkham Way, whose 1500 trees and heavy vegetation go some way to cleansing the air of these harmful chemicals. As the latest North London Waste Plan shows, the North London Councils, including Haringey, are, after six years, still desperate to use the Pinkham Way site for waste, with Waste Transfer apparently their preferred option. Haringey’s own Air Quality policy says that any development of the site must improve air quality; but it is impossible to see how this would be achieved by plans that would inevitably increase lorry traffic on the A406 and on our saturated local roads. The pollution would worsen, in spite of any soft soap claiming the opposite.”
For the study, PWA has sited 25 diffusion tubes in residential areas adjoining the A406, both at Pinkham Way and Telford Way, and along the local roads which become clogged with the traffic trying to avoid A406 congestion. Results from the month-long study are due in September. PWA’s participation in the study will be supported by the social enterprise Mapping for Change, a wholly owned subsidiary of University College London.
