21 June 2018 – Clean Air Day
Clean Air day is coming up on Thursday 21 June. This year CTPC members are planning to focus on #NoIdling – encouraging drivers to switch off their engines when stationary for more than one minute. Examples include when parked, waiting, loading/unloading and where there are long delays such as at Eastgates and at complex traffic light junctions such as both ends of Brook St and in Magdelen St (both in air quality management areas)
Colchester has four declared air quality management areas where Nitrogen Dioxide levels exceed the EU legal limit. The main source of the air pollution is from motor vehicles. Air pollution is believed to have contributed to over 140 early deaths in Colchester last year alone.
Find out more about air quality in Colchester
Transport is a massive source of air pollution. Toxic gases (such as nitrogen dioxide) and particulate matter emitted by vehicle engines can cause a whole range of health problems, ranging from coughing and itchy eyes to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer and even premature death. Children are particularly at risk with air pollution linked to low birth weight and poor lung development. The health impacts of air pollution cost the NHS around £54 billion a year.
You are not safer inside the car either. If you are sitting in stationary traffic, the air pollution in your car from the exhaust of the car in front is worse than outside your car.
Find out more about the health impacts of poor air quality
Leaving engines running while stationary is an unnecessary source of air pollution. Switching off when stationary is a simple action everyone can take that can make a big difference.
A recent study showed in areas of high air pollution due to traffic congestion, switching off engines can reduce peak concentrations in air pollution by as much as 20-30%.
CTPC members will be looking at No Idling promotions on their own sites and with their own staff and asking staff to help spread the word.
Clean Air Day offers really useful free resources to provide training, guidance and downloadable posters and flyers to support ‘No Idling’ campaigns.
If you are interested in getting involved in helping spread the message about air pollution, it’s impact and how to reduce air pollution, get in touch; or if you are a school, workplace or healthcare provider, Clean Air Day has developed free tailored downloadable action packs.
Find out more about free resources to take part in Clean Air Day 2018
If you want to know more about how you can reduce your own contribution to air pollution, have a look at the Clean Air Day website or it you want to get involved in helping make Colchester’s air safer to breathe get in touch with the local community group Clean Air Colchester
15 June – National Clean Air Day
The first ever National Clean Air Day falls on Wednesday 15th June.
Air quality has been in the media a lot recently as the evidence of the health impacts of air pollution, particularly from motorised vehicles is now very clear, with old people, unborn babies, children and those suffering from lung and heart problems the most vulnerable.
In Colchester alone 143 early deaths every year are attributable to air pollution.
As a town with an air quality problem in specific areas including the town centre (see more about Colchester’s air quality problem and the Air Quality Management Areas), we are very keen to support this initiative and the Clean Air Day organisers have provided heaps of free resources to help us.
Everyone who drives has a responsibility to contribute to reducing air pollution and there are small actions everyone can take that can contribute to making a big difference.
Please use the day to raise awareness of the causes and health impacts of air pollution and ask your colleagues to pledge to make a change to their travel behaviour on the 15th June.
With just one hour of your time, you could:
- Forward the social media message and information to your communications team and ask them to promote the day internally and externally including signing up to the Thunderclap
National Clean Air Day Social media resources
- Put the posters below up around your workplace
Fact2 – Pollution damages our hearts
Fact3 – How to avoid worst air pollution
Poster – Leave the car at home
- Share these leaflets with your colleagues
- Encourage your colleagues to pledge online to make a change on the 15th June at www.cleanairday.org.uk/pledge
There are 4 pledges to choose from
Leave my car at home
Turn off my engine whenever I can
Walk my children to school
Share tips on how to cut pollution with others.
- Promote AirTEXT a free alert service highlighting high pollution level days in Colchester so people with heart and lung conditions can take action if needed. AirTEXT alert service
If you can do a bit more?
There are lots of other ideas and resources available to help you draft a message from your chief executive or managing director, to hold an event, or talk to people about turning off their engines. Look at the resources below for further information.
There are other resource packs for schools and healthcare providers packed with ideas, posters, templates and key messages to share.
Go to the Clean Air Day website for more information.
Free parking for car sharers at Colchester Station
Do you travel by train for business meetings?
Why not travel with colleagues and make the most of the work time you have on the train that you would lose if you travelled by car?
Plus if you car share to the station you can ENJOY UP TO 8 HOURS FREE PARKING at Colchester Station.
The LoveurcarColchester car share bays are located on the south side of the station and anybody car sharing to the station for business or personal use can use them free of charge. You need a Loveurcar car share permit which you can also get for free by applying online.
The Loveurcar car share permit can also be used in a number of car parks in town including St Mary’s, Vineyard Street, Britannia and St Johns where the car share bays are located in preferential locations. (Please note normal car park charges still apply in the town centre car parks)
Car sharers can save money on fuel and car park charges by taking it in turns to give lifts or by reimbursing their car share drivers with a contribution towards fuel and parking costs.
There are added community benefits if more people car share. Car sharing contributes to reducing the number of cars on the roads, improvements in air quality through fewer cars, with the knock on effect of reducing traffic congestion.
If you workplace doesn’t already have a car share matching scheme, then suggest they set one up. You may be surprised to find how many colleagues live close to each other and could potentially car share some of the days of the week. You can find out more about car sharing including local online car share matching schemes below.
Find out more about car sharing here.
Apply for a FREE LUCC permit here
Building Resilient Communities event
If you didn’t manage to get to Colchester Borough Council’s (CBC) Building Resilient Communities event last month, you might be interested in some of the presentations, which are now all available on the CBC website.
Of particular interest to CTPC members – was a very illuminating presentation on dispelling the myths about electric vehicles. Amongst the wealth of useful information included was the large number of electric charge points across the country, the range of electric vehicles versus the daily distance the average person in the UK travels, the savings and business benefits.
The presentation did particularly focus on the Nissan Leaf – however this does appear to be the market leader in electric cars and we were impressed with it’s other green credentials including how much of the car is made from recycled materials and that 99% of the car can actually be recycling.
So if you want to know more about electric cars and see the other presentations visit the Building Resilient Communities webpage
Other presentations that could be useful to CTPC SME’s were a couple of funding opportunities for sustainable projects (though not travel related) offered through LoCASE and The Carbon Trust Green Business fund.
Road Safety Week
This week is Road Safety Week and ‘Drive Less, Live More’ is the theme. Here are some facts that charity Brake, organisers of Road Safety Week are sharing to support Drive Less, Live More…
- Two thirds (63%) of trips are made by car, including four in 10 (40%) trips of less than two miles.
- Average walking trips per person have decreased by 27% since 1995.
- A quarter of adults in England are obese and the cost to the NHS of people being overweight is estimated at £4.2 billion a year.
- Incorporating activity like walking and cycling into everyday life is effective for losing weight.
- In 2013 there were 1,770 people killed and 22,377 people seriously injured on UK roads. The vast majority of casualties are attributable to driver error.
- Nearly half of households in England could be struggling with the costs of car ownership.
- On average a family can save £642 a year by swapping a car-based school run for walking or cycling.
- 22% of UK greenhouse gas emissions come from road transport.
- Air pollution is estimated to cause 24,000 deaths a year in the UK, half attributable to road transport.
- The number of cars is set to increase by 43% by 2035 and traffic delays by 50%
You can take part and promote Road Safety Week by:
- Tweeting about Road Safety Week, using #RoadSafetyWeek and #drivelesslivemore.
- Asking your MP to sign Early Day Motion 683 supporting the Week.
- Using the posters, banners, guides and factsheet in their action pack to publicise your activities.
- Share their interactive resource on driving less – www.roadsafetyweek.org.uk/drivelessinteractive.
- Go to www.brake.org.uk/pledge to make Brake’s Pledge and find out how to support Brake.
- Fundraise or donate to support Brake’s campaigns for safer streets and support work for bereaved and injured road crash victims.
Find out more from www.roadsafetyweek.org.uk
Bee Green!
Colchester Institute hosted it’s second Bee Green event yesterday to highlight the importance of sustainability to it’s students, staff and the public. As well as having Colchester Bee Keeping Association with them for the day highlighting the vital contribution bees make to sustainable agriculture and the environment, there was also the opportunity to take part in lots of activities.
Free bike repairs, local stalls, a farmers market, a boot camp, electric cars, walking tours, free NHS checks, fabulous food cooked by Colchester Institute’s chefs were just some of the many other attractions.
Rhonda, Colchester Institute’s CTPC rep led a lunchtime walk around the town, including a picnic on route with free water and sandwiches. Eight members of staff took part. Rhonda said ‘I am really pleased with how the walk went and I hope to make it a more regular activity’
The Colchester Institute’s bike user group offered Dr Bike health checks, checking around 20 bikes over the course of the day. Students and staff could also test their stamina, to see how far they could cycle in three minutes on a stationary bike!
Pulp Friction was there, getting many students and staff back on a bike for a chance to pedal themselves a free smoothie!
The weather held out, but at 2:30 a sudden hail storm descended with pebble sized ice as a dramatic grand finale to a good day!
Preferential parking for Colchester car sharers
LoveurCarColchester has just launched their latest project to encourage car sharing into the town centre
Starting this month, you can benefit from dedicated car sharing bays in preferential locations in five town centre car parks. These are in St. Marys, St. Johns, Priory Street, Britannia and Vineyard Street car parks.
You can’t miss the colourful bays, as they are painted green with a red outline. They will soon also have a heart with 2+ in the middle! There are also signs near the bays explaining what they are all about and they are all located close to the entrance of each car park.
As you know, car sharing is a great way to save fuel, reduce congestion and drive in a greener way.
All you need to do to sign up to use the bays is to go to our LUC Car Share Permit page, fill in the form, and we will post you a FREE permit. It’s all very straightforward, so take advantage of this scheme and start car sharing today!
You will still need to pay normal parking fees or display your season ticket, but remember you could be sharing your parking and fuel costs with your car share partner/s. For tips on setting up a car share check out the LoveurCarColchester website.
National Lift Share Week 6-10 October
The 6 – 10 October is National Lift share week and a great opportunity to promote car sharing.
There are lots of good reasons to promote car sharing to your organisation including reducing pressure on your car parks, and relieving local traffic congestion.
There are plenty of benefits for those that choose to car share including the opportunity to save money on fuel and parking costs, reducing the stress of driving in and finding a parking space more easily.
Here are a few ideas for how you could promote Lift share week to your colleagues.
FAXI – We have purchased 10 groups for this new map based social network that allows you to identify journey sharing partners by seeing on a map who lives nearby or en route to one specific destination or workplace. You can then message them without giving away personal information. There is an apple and android ap to go with it. If you want to take advantage of one of our groups, get in touch to find out more.
Essex Car Share – If you don’t want your own workplace group you could promote ECC’s lift share matching site and encourage your colleagues to sign up.
Loveurcarcolchester – Share our quirky film featuring Baz and Purdy’s journey to regular car sharing to illustrate the benefits of car sharing in a different way. The web page also includes advice about car sharing on subjects such as insurance and charging.
If you have dedicated car share bays, now’s the time to remind everyone of your car sharing scheme and the benefits.
If you don’t have any dedicated car share bays, could you introduce some during Lift share week?
On the promotional side, what about holding a post code coffee and cake morning where members of staff who would like to car share can meet up and see if anyone else is living near them and could share lifts?
Or could you hold some sort of competition/prize draw for everyone who tries a car share journey during lift share week?
Email travel.plan.club@colchester.gov.uk if you want to discuss ideas or have help with your plans. Please let us know how your promotions go so we can post about it!
All charged up and ready to go!
Colchester’s first Rapid Electric Vehicle Charger went live at the Weston Homes Community Stadium yesterday. This is one of three rapid charge points installed around Essex.
It only takes 20 – 30 minutes to fully charge, helping electric car drivers travel further. Check out the press release for further details.
Essex Green Transport Conference
Would you like to find out what Essex County Council is doing to support Sustainable Travel and Electric Vehicles in Essex?
Would you like to learn how your community and business can work with the county council to reduce transport carbon emissions?
Would you like to test drive an electric vehicle and see the latest charging technology?
Then you are invited to the Essex Green Transport Conference on 20 May at the Essex Records Office from 09:30
Here are the full details of the day and how to register to attend.