ON Thursday, November 3, it was reported that the High Court had decided that the government’s plans to tackle air pollution was so poor that it breaks the law.

The government is now bound to implement measures to tackle the problem, which in the UK, causes 50,000 deaths a year.

We know that in Crediton’s Exeter Road, the air pollution has been over the limit for many years, and I have estimated that it means that in Crediton probably three people die each year as a direct consequence of their exposure to bad air.

It was argued by Devon County Council and Mid Devon District Council that opening the relief road should reduce pollution in Exeter Road by transferring some of the daily traffic from there onto the relief road.

They agreed that it could not reduce traffic flow along the High Street.

Since that time DCC have not released traffic figures for Exeter Road nor have MDCC moved the air quality monitor from Exeter Road as they promised to do when the relief road was opened, so there is no way of discovering whether air quality in the High Street meets the UK standards.

Both councils have tried to persuade themselves that the air quality problem in Crediton had been solved, but they have not provided any data to demonstrate that traffic which now flows daily along the High Street is not producing the same air pollution problem that similar flows did in Exeter Road before the Relief Road was opened.

Traffic-related air pollution kills.

Diesel powered vehicles and, in particular HGVs and the big agricultural tractors, which use the High Street, produce the bulk of both the particulates and the nitrogen oxides which can affect anyone using the High Street and particularly those already suffering from heart and circulation problems and asthma.

When will our County and District councillors take this seriously and pull their heads out of the sand?

John Boyle

Westcott

Fordton

Crediton