Silvertown Tunnel, Are Greenwich Voters really going to Vote in Developers friend Labour in 2014? .

An excerpt from the No to Silvertown Tunnel pollution map.

Some of Greenwich's most high-profile development sites suffer from air pollution far in excess of European limits, research carried out for No to Silvertown Tunnel has revealed.

Volunteers, including myself, used tubes to record the pollution in the air at over 50 locations close to the A102, A2 and A206 for four weeks during June, using similar methods used by Greenwich Council for its own pollution records. Over half the tubes came back with readings over 40 μg/m3, the EU limit.

The Woolwich Road/ Blackwall Lane junction in Greenwich, outside where new homes are now being built by developer Galliford Try, recorded 70 micrograms per cubic metre. The site is opposite the flagship Greenwich Square development, which will include homes, shops and and a leisure centre.

Meanwhile, readings of 50 μg/m3 were recorded at two locations at Greenwich Millennium Village - at the centre, by West Parkside; and at the junction of Bugsby's Way and Southern Way.

The highest figure recorded, unsurprisingly, was 70.55 μg/m3 at the Woolwich Road flyover, with a reading of 69 μg/ at Farmdale Road, where houses face an A102 slip road.

High readings were also recorded along the Woolwich Road (64 μg/m3 outside the Rose of Denmark pub in Charlton) and at Blackheath Royal Standard (52 μg/m3 at Westcombe Hill).

With Greenwich Council and London mayor Boris Johnson backing a Silvertown Tunnel, which will attract more traffic to the area, the figures can only get worse.

The figures will be discussed at a public meeting at the Forum at Greenwich, Trafalgar Road, SE10 9EQ on Wednesday (tomorrow) at 7pm.

Further south, high readings were recorded in Eltham at Westhorne Avenue, Eltham station and Westmount Road, where the A2 forms a two-lane bottleneck. Local MP Clive Efford supports the Silvertown proposal, despite compelling evidence that it will make traffic in his constituency worse. So do local Conservatives - even though we recorded a big fat 50 μg/m3 outside their local HQ.

Sssh - it's one of Greenwich Council's pollution tubes. Readings haven't been published since 2010.

What's more, when we contacted Greenwich Council to tell it we intended to place pollution tubes on its lamp posts, we discovered it had been collecting its own statistics since 2005.

But mystifyingly, no figures were published since 2010 - until now. We obtained the results through a Freedom of Information Act request, and have published a full archive on the No to Silvertown Tunnel website.

These borough-wide stats bear out our own research, revealing that the borough's worst location is outside Plumstead station - possibly due to the bus garage being nearby, but also a regular scene for heavy tailbacks.

Despite the council also pressing for a road bridge at Gallions Reach, it appears to have made little serious attempt to record pollution levels in the Thamesmead and Abbey Wood areas, which would be affected by such a scheme as well as emissions from London City Airport.

The whole borough has been an air quality management zone for 12 years, which makes Greenwich Council's position on road-building even more mystifying. Its decision to stop publishing air quality reports smacks of carelessness at the very least. Pollution has become the council's dirty secret.

If you drill down into the statistics, you'll actually find air quality gradually improving in some areas. But in places where traffic remains heavy, it's stubbornly awful.

Incidentally, the tubes are very easy to install and relatively cheap - if local groups find Greenwich Council's response to pollution wanting, it's simple for them to carry out their own studies, just as we did. Indeed, we were inspired by a study done by the Putney Society - so it should be easy for groups in Greenwich, Blackheath, Eltham and Charlton, or elsewhere, to follow suit.

Greenwich Council's pollution readings from May 2013 - you won't find this on the council's own website, but you'll find it all on the No to Silvertown Tunnel site.

Greenwich Council continues to back new road schemes on the grounds that they will take traffic off existing roads - despite a heap of evidence that proves the opposite. Indeed, studies show new roads simply increase traffic by making road travel more attractive.

It also claims economic benefits for new schemes - but it hasn't been able to produce a shred of evidence that this is the case. And will it take the health costs from the extra pollution caused by yet more traffic on local roads into account?

Even more perplexing is that neighbouring boroughs don't want Silvertown - leaving Greenwich's Labour council in a position where it's just a figleaf for a Conservative mayor's scheme. If Greenwich opposed it, would Boris really go ahead?

So how can we persuade local decision-makers to wake up and realise they're backing a scheme would could be disastrous? Well, we thought we'd invite them to our meeting, where they can hear from experts and see what results we got.

Here's the response from Don Austen, Labour councillor for Glyndon ward.

Incidentally, Don's ward not only contains the borough's filthiest air, his own home is very close to Charlton Village - where air quality also breaks EU rules. We had a few other responses that were nicer, but it's hard to dispel the feeling that Greenwich's councillors simply aren't taking this seriously.

That said, some of the nominees to be Labour's candidate for for Greenwich & Woolwich are alert to the dangers of blindly following a Conservative mayor's policy. Lewisham councillor Kevin Bonavia (whose own council opposes Silvertown) voices his concern in his manifesto: "According to a recent GLA report, 150 deaths per year across the borough are caused by air pollution. We shouldn’t be encouraging more traffic in already concentrated areas."

And yesterday, outsider Kathy Peach took aim not just at the proposal, but the way Greenwich Council has handled it:

I'm not convinced Boris Johnson's Silvertown Tunnel is the answer. Nor do I believe there's been an informed democratic debate about it.

I have heard from several quarters that Labour councillors who oppose the scheme have been banned from voicing their opposition in public... the fact that such stories gain traction points to something insular and complacent about our local political culture. We need a breath of fresh air. Let's get rid of stale tactics and encourage a vigorous inclusive open debate. We need to bring the community along with us - otherwise other parties will jump into the gap.

Hopefully we'll see Kathy, and Kevin, and others, and hopefully you, down at the Forum tomorrow night. If you're sceptical, feel free to come along and lob some tough questions.

But if Greenwich councillors won't listen, and Boris Johnson won't listen, then we need to find our own way forward - because this is a battle that can be won.

And we might even have some fun on the way. If you want to help, come along tomorrow night.

No to Silvertown Tunnel public meeting: Wednesday 16 October, 7-9pm, Forum at Greenwich, Trafalgar Road, London SE10 9EQ. Speakers are transport consultant John Elliott, the Campaign for Better Transport’s Sian Berry, King’s College London air quality expert Dr Ian Mudway and Clean Air London’s Simon Birkett.

PS. If you have the time, it's worth reading the 1994 Government report Trunk Roads and the Generation of Traffic. These studies are backed up by another report, published in 2006 for the Countryside Agency and Campaign to Protect Rural England.