THREE people a year could die in Crediton as a result of poor air quality - and nothing much will reduce this until the competion of major measures - one of them being the construction of a relief or link road.

The biggest problem is the very fine particulates in the air which cannot be seen. Mid Devon District Council environmental officers are willing to talk to members of the public at the town's annual meeting on April 20.

Paul Williams, environmental health manager, and Simon Newcombe, lead officer for environmental protection, both spoke about Crediton's air quality problems at the March meeting of Crediton Town Council's general purposes committee.

Simon said they were "trying our best" to get Devon County Council to bring forward plans such as the link road, which had not been abandoned; it had been moved back a year.

He said they had been disappointed that the county transport programme had been pushed back. In the mean-time there were ideas he was trying to bring forward by working with transport operators.

One idea was Eco Stars, being run in Sheffield, to reduce emissions and improve fuel efficiency. However, Simon said the real solution for the moment was a link road.

Paul said: "If we can find a good plan we shall talk about it. Stopping things getting worse is something we can do." He added: "This is your town, you tell me what ideas you have."

Paul said there had been difficulties in implementing a traffic management scheme on the High Street, one of the two seriously bad spots in Crediton. "We are still on the case," he stressed.

He said they were looking at measures they could probably bring in such as working with operators of commercial vehicle fleets to have retrofit particulate traps. He spoke about the efficacy of the car scrappage scheme in reducing emissions, as well as window swop and boiler scrapping.

The Action Plan to deal with air pollution in the town was now being reviewed and needs to be done by 2011. "We need to look at what is not moving forward and what needs changing." This will be known as Local Transport Plan 3, LTP3, the third alteration," he said.

Asked about the "black, sooty substance" on window sills of properties beside the road, Simon said this included substances from burning plastic, possibly from bonfires, matter from vehicle tyres, a small part of rubber and carbon from rubber, as well as soil blown by the wind and a tiny proportion of sea salt. However, this visible dust was quite different from the damaging PM10s, the really fine particles.

Simon said there 10 times more deaths in the UK from poor air quality than from road accidents. The hazard rate was greater than passive smoking and there could be three deaths a year in the town from air quality.

Elevated concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) were associated with inflamed airways, increased risk of respiratory infection and reduced lung function.

Elevated concentrations of particulates (PM10) are associated with respiratory irritation, reduced lung function and evidence was emerging that particulates can cause specific heart disease. as well as mild cognitive impairment.

"Despite the differences between air quality and road death figures, the Government spends about 10 times more on preventing road fatalities than improving air quality," he commented.

More information, figures and maps can be found on the district council's air quality website: http://www.middevon.airqualitydata.com/">www.middevon.airqualitydata.com/

Cllr Bob Wright introduced some humour when he said he had found that the mother of comedian Tommy Cooper, who died in 1984, came from Crediton and was told to move for her health.