Yvonne Brown, Bureau Veritas technical director, presents air quality evidence at Mersey Gateway public inquiry

Jun 4 2009 by Oliver Clay, Runcorn and Widnes Weekly News

AN AIR quality expert told the public inquiry that most Halton residents will breathe cleaner air should the Mersey Gateway project go ahead.

Yvonne Brown, of Bureau Veritas – a company hired to assess the project’s impact on air quality – said many Halton areas will see cuts in exhaust fumes such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon dioxide (CO2), and particulates.

She added that all the predicted pollution levels will be within official standards.

She said the areas to benefit the most would be the Silver Jubilee Bridge, Runcorn Old Town, along the Weston Point Expressway in Runcorn, and West Bank, Widnes.

She said air would become more polluted along the Central Expressway and on Wigg Island in Runcorn but that the effect would be of ‘low negative significance’ and fall within official limits. She added that a predicted increase in NO2 at Speke Road, near Croft Street, Widnes, would be ‘high’ and ‘negative’.

Yvonne Brown also said the project would cut CO2 and other emissions in the North West by 4.3% in 2015 but that CO2 emissions from traffic is expected to increase overall because of more traffic.

Steve Nicholson, Mersey Gateway project director, added: “We have provided the inspector and the public inquiry with extensive noise and air quality modelling data and forecasts and are confident this project will make a major contribution to the improvement of traffic noise levels and air quality throughout Halton and across the region as a whole.”