I sincerely hope that the Attorney General's decision to reopen the inquest on a young girl's death to include levels of air pollution due to living close to a main road will wake up the council's approach to road closures, forcing traffic onto longer stretches of main roads.

Whilst we await the results of the recent Markhouse Road Village scheme, here are some facts. The proposed road closures will prevent several alternative routes (often called rat runs) from side roads to/from and between Markhouse Road and Hoe Street. This will result in lengthier distances being travelled, stoppage time, congestion and increased pollution on both of these main roads. Why I say this is because these main roads contain a total of 25 bus stops, 14 sets of traffic lights, six zebra crossings and four box junctions. The alternative routes consequently avoid many of these hold-ups and delays in traffic flow, hence less congestion/pollution.

This is very important because in the council's Mini Holland bid, the heading of "benefits expected from the programme" under "health" includes "improved air quality, reducing incidence, severity and deaths from respiratory disease: On some of Waltham Forest's main arterial roads, including Lea Bridge Road, Hoe Street and Forest Road, there are high concentrations of NO2 which are above EU health-based limits."

When you consider all of the above and then take into account the thousand plus additional residents the council are creating homes for in and around Hoe Street via the three Tower Blocks and Juniper House projects it will compound the problem health wise.

Hopefully the council will see sense.

Trevor Calver

Chingford