LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Serious questions over bus route plans

I would be interested to know how the bus lane will be squeezed into the existing road layout without compromising people’s garden boundaries on Bawtry Road and East View, and without sacrificing the existing green verges which protect bus users and those living on Bawtry Road to some extent from the emissions and noise of the vehicles using that road.

How will Hellaby residents be able to safely cross the road to access the bus stop close to East View and, if driving, how do we safely access and leave the estate bearing in mind the current congestion levels and the difficulty in turning right towards Maltby?

Most people now travel up to Denby Way roundabout to make this turn as it is slightly less hazardous than finding a gap in the traffic (both ways). This adds to the congestion queuing along the estate.

We were promised that public meetings would take place about the proposed bus lane in late summer but as the money for this has already been approved this seems a token exercise only.

We fully support continuing funding to maintain our essential bus services, which are being reduced and becoming more and more unreliable, leading to real issues for our elderly residents and those without cars working or travelling to shops/facilities in the Doncaster borough area (which we adjoin).

Many residents prefer Doncaster to Rotherham for shopping and other facilities. One of the bus services formerly relied on to get to Doncaster is a recent casualty, hitting anyone working there or along the route.

Having had no opportunity to look at the detailed plans myself for the bus lane, as yet, whether the proposals will actually provide a  faster and more reliable bus service to Rotherham is unknown and the cost of such a short stretch of road seems disproportionate to any benefits it might bring.

I suppose the money is ring-fenced but it would have gone some way to sorting out the congestion issues we have raised in our e-petition about congestion on Bawtry Road.

In most residents’ views the bus lane will not improve the existing traffic congestion on Bawtry Road and from Addison Road to Denby Way, Hellaby, will remain a bottleneck.

Will other traffic be excluded from the additional lane at all times or just peak times, when traffic is heaviest?

The single lane in both directions up to and from the Denby Way roundabout for the existing heavy traffic levels, causes prolonged periods of queuing traffic every day adding to our already unhealthy environment.

As a route used daily by the three emergency services, how will they safely and speedily negotiate the stretch from Addison Road up to Denby Way roundabout?

How will the extra lane be added without bringing the buses closer to people’s homes along Bawtry Road at Hellaby, or compromising the ancient monument site fronting the road (in front of Hellaby Hall Hotel)?

What screening will there be to protect people from diesel bus vehicles emissions and the excessive traffic noise which begins around 5.15am and now extends into late evening? So currently more questions than answers.

There has been extensive research into prolonged exposure to high levels of air pollutants, in particular the most damaging, PM2.5, and its adverse impacts, both short-term exposure and long-term exposure particularly on the elderly, young and those with chronic health conditions.

Many scientific studies have shown that the ratio of daily to annual average PM2.5 can vary significantly by location and, in most towns/cities, concentrations above those where daily impacts of PM2.5 have been observed are likely to occur.

Despite repeatedly asking for PM 2.5 monitoring at Hellaby, RMBC remain obdurate about providing this, on the grounds of cost, citing St Ann’s monitoring site on Fitzwilliam Road, which meets the current PM2.5 objective level, as representative of our area. We have challenged this to no avail.

The Access to Healthy Assets and Hazards (AHAH) Report 2019 which allowed researchers and policy makers to understand which areas have poor environments for health confirmed that Maltby and Hellaby were among the most unhealthy areas of South Yorkshire when taking into consideration the impact of poor air quality, according to the research by the Consumer Data Research Centre, which is a collaboration between the University of Leeds, University College London, University of Liverpool and the University of Oxford.

Despite this evidence, updated in 2022, to show that Hellaby is now in the worst category (tenth — previously ninth) which suggests that our concern that Hellaby is already a pollution hotspot for particulates (PM2.5) is a reasonable one, even before the additional traffic that will be created by the Panattoni site and other developments under construction.

We were excluded from the government’s Clean Air Strategy, I feel, due to the shortcomings of the historical data monitoring of NO2 on Bawtry Road, which may have underestimated our exposure to this pollutant. We have already been exposed to an unhealthy environment for a prolonged period.

I hope that our community will soon be advised when we can expect the promised public meetings to begin.

Is it too much to hope that these will be consultations with those most affected — the residents of Hellaby and Maltby West ward — not just a fait accompli?

Ann Rowley, Hellaby Community Action Group