Climate Change Mitigation and Air pollution Reduction in Canterbury

We the undersigned ask that Canterbury District Council adopt as policy the following measures to address climate change and air pollution in the district.

Part 1) Climate change Pledge

In order to fulfil the commitment to the Nottingham Declaration that the Council signed up to in December 2007 and to help the Government meet its national and legal commitments, we Canterbury District Council agree to implement the following measures:

i) to work with central government to contribute, at a local level, to the UK Climate Change Programme, the Kyoto Protocol and the carbon reduction programme;

ii) participate in local and regional networks for support;

iii) within the next two years develop plans with our partners and local communities to progressively address the causes and impacts of climate change, according to our local priorities, securing maximum benefit for our communities;

iv) publicly declare, within appropriate plans and strategies, the commitment to achieve a significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from our own authority’s operations, especially energy sourcing and use, travel and transport, waste production and disposal and the purchasing of goods and services;

v) assess the risk associated with climate change and the implications for our services and our communities of climate change impacts and adapt accordingly;

vi) encourage all sectors in our local community to take the opportunity to adapt to the impacts of climate change, to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions and to make public their commitment to action;

vii) monitor the progress of our plans against the actions needed and publish the results.

In particular, under iii) above we agree to devise and adopt a Climate Change Strategy to achieve all the above as a matter of urgency, by using the guidance set out in: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/nottingham/Nottingham-Declaration/Developing-an-Action-Plan/1.-Getting-started

Part 2) Air pollution

Canterbury’s air pollution is in breach of legal air quality objectives in Broad Street/Military Road, Upper Bridge Street, Lower Bridge Street, Sturry Road, North Lane, St Dunstan’s St., St Peter’s Place, Rheims Way and Wincheap. Air pollution is progressively getting worse. According to Bureau Veritas, the council’s air quality experts, there will need to be a huge reduction of vehicular traffic if air quality objectives are to be met. We therefore agree to the following measures;

i) to employ an independent expert to create a transport blueprint for Canterbury that will significantly reduce vehicular use so that legal air quality objectives can be met.

ii) to employ a health expert to undertake a study on the impacts of air pollution on people’s health in the pollution hotspots in Canterbury.

iii) To introduce Low Emission Zones across the district to target heavy goods vehicles, buses and delivery vehicles.