Improving air quality in Lochee Road

Lochee Road at approach to Rankine Street

Following raising my continuing concerns about air pollution at specific sites in Dundee during February’s  City Council Environment Committee meeting, earlier today, along with ward colleague Cllr Richard McCready, I met with key council officials from Environment and Transportation about the air quality in Lochee Road at the Dudhope Terrace/Cleghorn Street/Rankine Street junction, that Friends of the Earth recently highlighted as being one of the most polluted in Scotland - details below:

Top 10 most polluted streets for nitrogen dioxide in 2012 (figures in microgrammes per cubic meter, European standard 40): 

Glasgow Kerbside - 72.5 

South Lanarkshire Raith Interchange - 62.9 

Aberdeen Wellington Road - 58.8 

Edinburgh St John's Road - 57.9 

Dundee Lochee Road - 55.4 

Perth Atholl Street - 55.1 

Aberdeen Union Street Roadside - 55.0 

Edinburgh Queensferry Road - 54.5 

Dundee Meadowside - 54.5 

Paisley Central Road - 50.7 

One side of Lochee Road at the location of concern (the junctions at Rankine Street/Cleghorn Street/Dudhope Terrace) is in the West End Ward and I have asked council officers about steps that require to be taken to improve air quality here.

It is vital there is a proactive approach to tackling the air quality issue.   A significant number of constituents live in the tenement flats on the south side of Lochee Road near to the junction where nitrogen dioxide are unacceptably high.   It is therefore important that the council has a clear strategy for improving air quality here.

I specifically raised the need to look at the traffic management aspects – to avoid long queues of traffic building up at rush hour by keeping traffic moving and looking at ways of reducing the traffic flow in the vicinity.     

In addition to a number of measures officers have already taken, they gave a commitment to review the traffic lights vehicle activation to keep traffic moving and will also undertake vehicle counts to see if any adjustments to traffic management would further help the situation.