About SPACE for Heaton

A Safe Pedestrian and Cycling Environment (SPACE) for Heaton

SPACE for Heaton is a community movement created by a group of residents that would like Heaton to be a safe, pleasant and enjoyable space for people of all ages and abilities to live in and move around.

We would like to see

• Safe routes to schools for children
• Safe options for active travel for all ages
• Streets that are safe and easy to navigate for people with limited mobility or vision
• Air that is safe to breathe
• Less use of Heaton residential streets as through routes for motor traffic
• Robust and easily accessible data about travel and air quality in Heaton

What we would like to know

Newcastle upon Tyne has a number of air quality monitors but none of them cover the Heaton area.[i] With over 60 000 vehicles per day passing Heaton on the Coast Road, 15 000 vehicles per day travelling along Chillingham Road[ii] and 8000 vehicles using Warwick Street[iii] we are concerned that the air we breathe most days is unsafe.  We are particularly concerned about the effects on young children whose lungs are still developing. National reports suggest that over 2000 schools and nurseries are close to roads with illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide so we would like to have some data on the air quality around Heaton schools.[iv]

Why we want to know

Some terraces in Heaton see a vehicle every 5 seconds[v] at peak times so we are concerned about the effect this has on air quality and the restrictions it places on people trying to travel by other means.

If people have access to up to date data on the Heaton environment then they can make informed decisions about how they travel and which streets are so polluted that they should be avoided (especially by children).

What we would like others to know

• How to easily find out about safe travel and air quality.
• Reliable facts about travel and air quality in Heaton, not just opinions.
• How other areas are tackling similar problems – what works elsewhere.

Notes

[i] Monitoring Air Quality – Newcastle City Council

[ii] http://www.dft.gov.uk/traffic-counts/cp.php?la=Newcastle+upon+Tyne#27518

[iii] http://www.heatontrafficstats.co.uk

[iv] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/04/thousands-of-british-children-exposed-to-illegal-levels-of-air-pollution

[v] www.heatontrafficstats.co.uk – Warwick St at 17:15. 127 vehicles west, 79 east. 209 in the 15 min count period, 13.7 cars per minute. 60 seconds/13.7 cars is 4.3 so rounded up to the nearest second to means 1 car every 5 seconds