Markeaton School - Air Quality

There will soon be posters appearing around the streets near Markeaton Primary School, displayed at the level of someone sitting in a car. This is because the school is aware that air quality around schools is worse than a few streets away and that this higher level of particulates impacts negatively on the young lungs of their pupils.

The posters will ask drivers of parked cars to switch their engines off so as to improve air quality. It is not about trying to shame drivers or scapegoat them - appropropriately enough for a school, it is about raising awareness.

If you’d like a poster in your window, please drop a note into 24 Wheeldon Ave

The school has an arrangement with Jonty Farmer that school run parents can park there to avoid the hassle of finding a space in our narrow streets and getting stuck in the frequent mini gridlocks at Park Grove junctions.

Obviously, it is not just parents who want to keep the heater on in winter/run the aircom in summer; there are students checking phones before driving home, workmen eating their pack ups in middle of renovating our houses, people using different businesses on Kedleston Road and our visitors maybe waiting for us to get home and make them a cuppa! So the posters will help them make aware too.

For those of us who memorised the Highway Code a long time ago, it says: “You must not leave a parked vehicle unattended with the engine running or leave a vehicle engine running unnecessarily while that vehicle is stationary on a public road.”

 And if a driver is holding their phone, whether to make a call, check texts or use the mapping funciton and keys are in ignition then they are breaking the law. As RAC says: “If your engine is running, your phone should be nowhere near your hands.”

The RAC also has some facts and background on air quality here which mentions the Clean Air Zones. Derby is a CAZ so has to take action to reduce particulate levels, so far there is the proposed work to reduce vehicle waiting times at Stafford St junction during rush hours.