Residents living on the most polluted road in Wales have called on Caerphilly County Borough Council to buy their houses to end their health nightmare.
The European Union dictates that there is a certain level of air pollution which can be hit 18 times before breaching legal limits. Hafodyrynys Road has exceeded that level 57 times already this year.
More than half of homeowners with houses on the worst-affected side of the street have called on the council to purchase and demolish their homes because they say traffic is so bad.
The plea is made in tonight’s Week In Week Out, on BBC One Wales.
Pensioners Neil and Dawn Howells live on the road.
Mr Howells told Week In Week Out: “We’ve lived here for nearly 40 years and the traffic every year you can see it getting worse. It’s just beyond a joke. I want to get away from here but how can I? I can’t get another mortgage at my age. I wished they’d flatten it and give us somewhere else to go.”
Mrs Howells, who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, added: “When I go out the front all the fumes and everything, it’s harder to breathe. It’s no quality of life when you’re struggling with your breath to get ready and go out. Sometimes we feel like prisoners here, we can’t get out.”
Another resident of Hafodyrynys Road, Deanna Hardwick, has two children, Daisy and A-J.
She is worried about their health and agreed that compulsory purchase is the best solution as she has been trying to sell her house for a year.
“[A-J] has been given an inhaler for when he’s really bad to help him breathe. It’s not something I want for him. I want him to be healthy – to be able to go out and play without struggling to breathe. It makes you feel incompetent as parent sometimes. I’m sure people will say why do you live there and have children, but this is our home – we shouldn’t have to choose between having a family or where we live, you should be able to have a healthy family wherever you live.”
The programme reveals how air pollution is a “public health crisis” and needs to be tackled urgently according to Public Health Wales. The organisation has also said tackling air pollution is a priority second only to smoking and is more of a concern than obesity or alcohol consumption.
Figures from Public Health Wales show that air pollution causes the equivalent of 2,000 deaths in Wales every year, which amounts to 6% of all deaths.
Air pollution is largely being caused by a big increase in the number of diesel engines on UK roads after tax was reduced for diesel cars in 2001. Local authorities have a duty to measure pollution levels on roads where people spend time near heavy traffic. If a road has high levels, councils must declare it as an Air Quality Management Area. They then have a duty to monitor and compile action plans. There are 41 of these areas across Wales.
Huw Brunt, from Public Health Wales, told the programme: “We all know smoking is probably the number one public health priority, air pollution probably comes second to that. If you talk about obesity, inactivity and alcohol, they actually come behind air pollution.”
Mr Brunt said the health impact of air pollution is varied and added: “In the short term, it’s the eyes, nose and throat irritation primarily. In the long term the consequences are more serious – on the heart, lungs and there’s an increased risk of cancer and other symptoms and conditions as well.
“The people who are most vulnerable to the effects are the vulnerable groups – children and elderly people with pre-existing chronic illnesses.”
A spokesman for Caerphilly County Borough Council said: “We fully recognise there are air quality issues at this location due to a number of key factors. This is a strategic cross-valley route carrying a high volume of traffic every day and the unique topography and steep gradient of the road also adds to the elevated levels of air pollution. We understand the concerns of residents and we are working with the local community to develop an air quality action plan. This plan will consider a number of options to help address the problem in the future.”
Week In Week Out understands that compulsory purchase of the 23 houses closest to the road is one of a number of options the council is considering but Caerphilly Council would not confirm this to the programme. The plans will be discussed with residents at a meeting on Thursday, March 9.
The Welsh Government said it is firmly committed to reducing emissions and improving air quality across Wales. It added that it is in the process of considering responses to a recent consultation on reducing pollution and that the Government’s response would be published soon.
A spokesperson said: “Reducing emissions and tackling their causes will require joint working across government as well as support from the public. We all have an important role to play if we are to significantly improve air quality for our future generations.
“Our landmark Active Travel Act which came into force almost three years ago is an important step to help improve air quality, reduce congestion, and boost the nation’s physical and mental health.
“It requires local authorities to take full account of the requirements of walkers and cyclists when making investment in transport infrastructure and networks, so that we can achieve our ambition of making walking or cycling short distances the norm here in Wales.”
Week In, Week Out: The Invisible Killer on our Streets on Tuesday, March 7, BBC One Wales, 10.40pm.
Also available on BBC iPlayer.
The most common cause of COPD is smoking, is Mrs Howells a smoker or has she ever been a smoker? We don’t know as this report seems more than a touch biased and they are only telling us what they want us to know.
“Figures from Public Health Wales show that air pollution causes the equivalent of 2,000 deaths in Wales every year, which amounts to 6% of all deaths.” – how can they possibly prove that 2000 supposedly healthy people are killed every year by air pollution alone? How many of those already had a health condition caused by smoking, drinking, eating too much.
There is at present a witch hunt being aimed at diesel car drivers, well Gordon Brown the then Labour Prime Minister encouraged us to switch to greener more environmentally friendly diesel cars and even lowered the road tax on them to a very low £30 a year – thanks Gordon my road tax is now very affordable and I’m killing 2000 folk a year as I drive around, it may just solve the current housing crisis.
Diesel exhaust has been proven to be harmful to human health and was classed group 1 carcnegenic in 2012. It’s hardly a witch hunt, nobody is making you give up your car. It’s advising people to choose wisely when choosing your next car, exhaust pollution needs to come down.
Car exhaust fumes are cleaner than they have ever been and will only get cleaner as technology advances. We were all sold a lie by Labour’s Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and their cronies ( not the first time Blair lied to the country ), as a result car manufacturers invested heavily in diesel car production with some models only being available with a diesel engine. No I’m not giving up my diesel car, it’s bad enough that some ridiculous European legislation now means that diesel vehicles are fitted with Diesel Particulate Filters which is causing no end of grief for owners of diesel powered vehicles and that includes buses, coaches and delivery vans. I would still like to know how Mrs Howells developed COPD in the first place.
I am the pollution would be less if we had better public transport in the valleys. When I was growing up the public transport was far better with a lot more train lines up and down the valley. We need better and more reliable public transport
Yes, it really is of no use to appeal for people to use cars less when it is often their only means to getting to and from work. The transport system was indeed better forty years ago and, in the case of railways, better seventy years ago.
This problem can only worsen because of the current mania for building houses where there is no work, eg Caerffili, which forces even more car journeys as people travel to Cardiff and Newport daily.