MEMBERS of the Save Penny Pie Park campaign will meet with leader of Barnsley Council Sir Steve Houghton later today (Monday) to ask that the council ‘thinks again’ about plans to turn the park into a giant roundabout.
More than 1,100 people have signed the petition against the £4.3m plan for a gyratory system to relieve traffic on Dodworth Road and Pogmoor Road which will see a huge swathe of the park lost.
Five of the campaigners will be meeting Sir Steve on Monday afternoon including Peter Giles, of Lancaster Street, Barnsley.
He said: “We will be requesting a withdrawal of the plan and a full borough-wide consultation on how best to deal with illegal and unhealthy levels of airborne toxins and volumes of traffic that the town cannot cope with adequately.
“The meeting takes place at the town hall on Monday at 2pm and concerned individuals are invited to show support outside the main entrance from 1.30 onwards.”
Documents submitted with the planning application reveal physical barriers could be installed to protect residents from increased traffic noise if the plans go ahead, with others offered noise insulation measures on their homes.
Documents also reveal that while improved air quality is one of the goals of the project, householders near one section of the scheme could expect the air quality around their homes to get worse, even though they are in an air quality management zone.
A report warns that homes in Dodworth Road, which already experience high levels of noise, could expect to see that increase by at least one decibel, stating: “The cause of these likely significant adverse effects is the increase in traffic flow on Dodworth Road.”
Because it is not practical to install noise barriers at that location, the report warns: “Other means of mitigating the significant noise effects predicted to occur along Dodworth Road need to be considered, such as the offer of noise insulation measures to affected properties.”
Other areas expected to be affected by increased noise after the start of the scheme are around St Martin’s Close and Grosvenor Walk, with two options for barriers under review which could be ‘a possible means of removing or reducing the significant adverse effects predicted to occur at the properties to the north and east of the gyratory scheme’, suggesting that noise levels for some residents may rise above existing levels regardless of work to counteract the problem.
Meanwhile, the same consultants found there would be ‘significant adverse impacts’ on air quality between the motorway junction and Moorland Avenue, though they would be counterbalanced by ‘signficant beneficial impacts at properties near the Pogmoor crossroads”.
They say other parts of the scheme would not see significant changes and that because of increasingly stringent exhaust emission rules, it was expected pollution levels would fall at all locations in the years ahead.
Coun Neil Wright, who represents residents in the area, said: “Obviously, there are a lot of questions as councillors we need to ask,” he said.
“I have been quite vocal, it is not what residents want and I have fed that back to the people making the decisions. It is a sensitive subject and we have to be there for people.
“We want to be putting across the anger felt by residents to these people and the upset it is causing,” he said.
