House of Commons - Culture, Media and Sport

Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Minutes of Evidence

APPENDIX 13

Memorandum submitted by Greenwich Action to Stop Pollution

Our organisation was formed in the autumn of 1991 and represents slightly over 100 people living in the Borough of Greenwich, the majority of whom live close to Greenwich Peninsula. Since that time we have campaigned with both vigour and success to improve the quality of our urban environment.

G.A.S.P. see ourselves as urban ecologists. We are dedicated to working at the interface of poverty and environmental issues in a creative and non-violent dynamic, that would bring lasting improvements to the quality of people's lives. A flavour of how people suffer from the social consequences of unsustainable economic development can be experienced by talking to the occupants of almost any row of houses in Greenwich. During one house to house petitioning exercise I was told of the following:

a publican with 3 asthmatic children

a pensioner who had spent 20 minutes waiting in vain for the traffic to subside so she could cross a busy road

a woman who could not sleep in her own front bedroom because of the constant hum of night time traffic

the regular arguments between residents and visitors over parking rights around the streets near Greenwich Park on a Sunday afternoon

We are pleased to enclose along with this document a copy of our report called 'Poor Show' which is the first report of its kind (not printed). The report details the effects of traffic on people of low income. It was conducted in Greenwich because the borough suffers from both heavy traffic and high levels of social deprivation, in fact some studies suggest the borough is the 12th or 15th poorest in the country.

GREENWICH'S EXISTING URBAN ENVIRONMENT

In January this year the government released figures which showed that levels of ground level ozone exceeded standards set for human health on twenty days during 1997, making it the third worst in the country. This disturbing pattern was reinforced by the fact that particulate levels exceeded the standards on 19 days and Nitrogen Dioxide exceeded the standards on 21 days. In fact during one brief monitoring exercise to measure particulate levels twice the permitted 24 hour level was recorded in just 5 hours on Trafalgar Road. The Department of Health's own advisory panel, the Committee on the medical effects of air pollution acknowledge that between 12,000 and 24,000 premature deaths a year are linked to the pollution from vehicular exhaust, particularly the pollutants named above. Greenwich has no right to be complacent about this problem, a survey for the health trust (April 1996) highlighted that one in eight children between the ages of 4 and 12 have asthma, previous reports show Greenwich to be above the national average for respiratory illnesses and lung cancer and finally the 1994 'Breadline Greenwich Report' drew attention to the fact that in the wards adjacent to the river one in ten adults are economically inactive due to a long term illness. It is reasonable to believe that some of these premature deaths are in Greenwich and we believe it is likely that more people are suffering premature deaths here, from this cause, than in most parts of the country.

We believe that these effects are not inevitable, traffic reduction measures are possible. These measures could be implemented at the same time as the strengthening of the local economy so that the community has less requirements for external inputs with their consequent needs for transportation.

THE THEME OF THE MILLENNIUM EXHIBITION

Firstly, it is essential for the promoters of the exhibition to have a clear idea of what the event is celebrating or marking. When the New Millennium Experience Company were asked this question in the past they replied that it was celebrating the birth of Christ and secondly the event would be marking the moment from which the world begins its calendar. The birth of Christ is an event which is not possible to accurately date and only of relevance to Christians. When pressed on this point they have been forced to agree that the event is merely marking the change from the second millennium to the third millennium. G.A.S.P. look forward to the prospect of celebrating this moment but we feel that the Dome should mark something more significant, a turning point in human consciousness. We would characterise this as moving from a consumer to a conserver society. The notion that our worth is derived from our material possessions can be replaced by one where our value is derived from the quality of our relationships: to one another, to our communities and to that slightly cooled lump of molten rock precariously spinning around the sun that we call home.

The promoters accept the challenge of a sustainable festival (environmental impact assessment 3.34), however the most commonly accepted definition of sustainability—meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs—is too simplistic. G.A.S.P. urge the adoption of the following targets:

1. Every system used in its area should be able to be continued, and every production cycle repeated, without environmental deterioration.
2. The district must produce at least enough food and raw materials to enable its members to live simply and comfortably while staying within the limits of their environment and not exploiting other parts of the world.
3. All the energy used in the area must come from its own renewable resources.
4. The creation of a community bank to utilise the receipts from the festival for the continued promotion of local enterprise, examples already in existence elsewhere in the world include the women's self-employment project in Chicago.
5. The creation of infrastructure which is of lasting benefit to the whole community.
6. The creation of meaningful local employment, with skill updating based on providing people within the long term means of earning a living, for example in the field of fitting energy conservation products.
7. The remediation not just of the contaminated Greenwich Peninsula site but of other sites in the borough, and targetable improvements in urban air quality.

These criteria are tough but necessary if we are to anticipate that the event will be judged not by what is considered to be the hallmark of sustainability now but what will be considered acceptable in five or more years from now. The criteria suggest many new possibilities not in the planning application such as the incorporation of solar panels in the structure of the dome or photovoltaic generators to recharge electric powered vehicles visiting the site.

OUR PRESENT CONCERNS

In the outlined planning application the New Millennium Experience Company state that 34% of the 12.49 million visitors to the event will make their journey to the Dome at some point by car. This figure represents approximately 4.1 million people. Working on the basis that each car could contain four people (a best case scenario) this means that the event will generate at least a million car trips over the two years of its existence. This would happen during the very period when the government will be bringing forward new policies in health, transport and sustainable development to restrain car usage. The logic of this analysis is that there should be no Park and Ride or Park and Sail sites and that public transport should be relied upon as the sole means of getting people to the Dome, even if this was to entail a scaled down festival.

The above problem becomes particularly apparent when considering the location of the two Park and Ride sites in the borough. Both Woolwich Arsenal and Thamesmead Park and Ride sites are in the east of the borough and yet would attract traffic coming from West London, this raises the prospect of vehicles crossing the borough in one direction and then coaches taking people back across the borough to the peninsula.

The estimated 1% arrivals by walking and cycling are not ambitious enough, these modes of travel should be increased in line with the Royal Commission on the Environment 1994 report. Walking could be encouraged by linking the riverside walkway to the thoroughfare proposed between Greenwich town centre and the peninsula site. The former could be upgraded by raising the level of the walkway and creating extra width by removing the fencing around the naval college, it must be perfectly possible to safeguard this building using electronic surveillance.

We were originally given the impression that the Millennium Rapid Transit Link would be a segregated, possibly light rail connection between Charlton station and the Dome. To date we have seen no evidence of either an agreed route, or the upgrading of Charlton station to allow disabled access on the Eastbound side or tendering for service operators. We are perturbed by the prospect of this supposedly high quality link being merely an hoppa bus without provision for the disabled and subject to the same congestion that delays the existing bus services. Given that this link is intended to convey 5% of visitors, approximately 1000 visitors an hour at peak time (Planning application, volume E, para. 5.3), G.A.S.P. would urge that more resources are devoted to ensuring that this service is fully operational by December 1999.

The transport strategy for the Dome needs to recognise that traffic volume is increasing even without the Dome, and that the promoters have an incentive for working with the Council and the community to implement a demand management strategy to reduce traffic levels before the Millennium. As a last resort we would support an approach by the council to be one of the experimental areas for congestion charging providing that it didn't penalise people on low incomes or local residents.

We would also like to take this opportunity to call for more participatory models of public consultation to be implemented so as to provide a continual opportunity to reflect public opinion and allow the event to be shaped by well founded criticism. To date the debacle over the choice of material for the roof has been only one example of how the wrong decisions have been made when local people or local and national environmental organisations have not had sufficient opportunity to shape the event. The antagonism created by the ill conceived choice of Falconwood for a Park and Ride site could have been prevented if local opinion had been sought earlier. The lack of local knowledge demonstrated by the promoters of the event speaking at the public meeting in Eltham gave the impression that the Dome is being done to Greenwich and not for Greenwich. A practical suggestion for addressing this problem would be to provide an information board/forum on the Millennium Dome website.

We are concerned that there will be a lasting legacy from the event in terms of transport infrastructure. With this in mind we are disturbed that original promises regarding the utilisation of the Angerstein Wharf Rail Link from the North Kent Rail Line tO the river are not being kept. This rail link could relatively cheaply be upgraded and would allow people arriving from Kent to access the Dome by rail. In addition it would ensure the Dome was linked via heavy rail to the rest of the country.

A RESPONSE TO THE TRANSPORT STRATEGY

Many people in the borough believe that the current levels of traffic in South East London are already excessive and the recently released D.O.T. traffic volume maps (obtained by the R.A.C.) reveal that trunk roads in many parts of the country will be gridlocked by 2005. In addition air pollution levels already provide grounds for serious health concern and many pollutants are known causes of heart diseases, respiratory illnesses and cancer. For this reason we find the fact that table 13.1 of the E.I.A. reference to—no mitigating measures proposed—unacceptable, particularly as para 11.26 forecasts an increase in nitrogen dioxide, para 11.28 forecasts an increase in carbon monoxide, para 11.32 forecasts an increase in benezene and para 11.35 forecasts an increase in particulate concentrations when comparing the use of the site for the exhibition as against no development.

We also have serious reservations about the presentation of the data. The data must be compared with the objectives set out in the United Kingdom National Air Quality Strategy Document issued in draft form in August 1996 and in final form in March 1997. The objectives for nitrogen dioxide is 200 pg/m3, 104.6 ppb as an hourly mean. These are meant to be interim standards in advance of the E.P.A.Q.S. report. The pacific objectives for policy will be the adoption of this value as a 99.9th percentile of hourly means in a calendar year by 2005. However the E.I.A. refers to 98th percentile readings of as much as 279 pg/m3, this the equivalent of ignoring the top 175 hourly readings in a year as against the top 9 readings as well as accepting a more relaxed guide value. E.P.A.Q.S. has recommended a standard for carbon monoxide of 10 ppm as a running 8 hour average. However though table 11.8 refers to maximum 8 hour concentrations in pg/m3 and using the recommended conversion rate of 10 ppm equals 11.7 pg/m3 the forecast is that in four of the five sites where measurements were taken, carbon dioxide levels will exceed the objectives by between 28% and 360%.

E.P.A.Q.S. has recommended 5 ppb running average annual mean for benzene. This is equivalent to 16 pg/m3 for this known genotoxin, carcinogen. However table 11.9 of the E.I.A. forecasts levels of benzene at 3 of the 5 receptors at between 40% and 280% above the stated objectives.