Category: Environment

  • Join the annual bird-walk in Queen’s Park on Saturday 6th May

    Please join us for a stroll through Queen’s Park and Paddington Cemetery.

    Meet at the park café at 9.30am. The walk will take about 90 minutes, but people can join or leave at any time. We will go round the Park and then via the Woodland Walk, Chevening Road, Winchester Ave, Willesden Lane to Paddington Old Cemetery, arriving at approximately 10.15am. So finding us should be easy.

    Nothing is guaranteed, but birds to look out for are: Woodpecker (Green or Great Spotted), Thrush (Mistle or Song), Blackbird, Finch, Robin, Sparrow, Crows, Tit (Blue, Great or Long-tailed),  Jackdaw, Magpie, Dove, Starling, Swift, Jay, Wren, Gull (Herring or Black-headed), Parakeet and Pigeon (Wood or Feral). Bring binoculars and a pocket bird ID guide, if you have them, but if not, don’t worry – we can share. 

    Everyone is welcome, but children must be accompanied by a parent or adult known to them. Those under 8 might be bored, so you need to judge if it is for them.

    Male Great Spotted Woodpecker

    PLEASE LET US KNOW IF YOU PLAN TO COME   

    Contact: Robin (robisharp@googlemail.com,  020 8969 0381) or Judith (juditharose@yahoo.co.uk). 

  • Letter to PM calling for action on diesel emissions scandal

    As concerns grow about the damaging impact of air pollution on our health, QPARA has been meeting with other residents’ associations and community groups, mostly in south Brent, to look at ways of improving local air quality. This follows air pollution monitoring by QPARA along Salusbury Road last August and October, which showed average levels of toxic NO2 along the main road in excess of the legal annual mean. Readings on side streets were slightly lower, highlighting the link between air pollution and diesel vehicle emissions.
     
    Clean Air for Brent, the group of local bodies, including QPARA, wrote to Brent MPs on 5th April asking them to endorse a letter to the Prime Minister and the Environment Secretary.
     

    Clean Air for Brent are engaging with Brent Council on a revised Air Quality Action Plan and an anti-idling campaign involving schools. The Mayor of London is also implementing a package of measures to tackle air pollution, including new Low Emission Bus Zones. Queen’s Park is not one of them, but we will benefit from cleaner buses along Chamberlayne Road from 2018 as a result of the Edgware Road being designated a Low Emission Bus Zone.

     
    In the meantime, we can all do much more to reduce pollution by driving less, switching away from diesel to cleaner hybrid vehicles, and not leaving engines running when stationary.
     
     

  • Woeful response on Brent’s air quality consultation – have your say now!

    As of 20 March only 63 out of 350,000 people in Brent have responded to Brent’s consultation for its revised Air Quality Action Plan – apparently this is considered good!! We don’t think it is half good enough.
     
    Air pollution, mostly from diesel emissions, is killing an estimated 9,400 people in London annually while 800 schools are on seriously polluted traffic routes. This really is a matter of life and death.
     

    QPARA’s Air Pollution Sub-Group (now working with other local action groups) is asking everyone to complete the questionnaire for Brent’s revised Air Quality Action Plan asap. The current closing date is 30 March (though we have urged an extension).  

     
    The link is here:  Consultation on Brent Air Quality Action Plan.  To make sense of the questionnaire you need to read the supporting document first (not the summary) but it is mercifully short.
     
    Thank you

  • CAPS – Combatting Air Pollution on Salusbury Road – project update

    nox-pollution-01

    The CAPS project has moved forward rapidly since our first posting. Brent has confirmed that they can let us use their big mobile monitoring machine either in July/August or later if we need time to agree a suitable site close to Salusbury Road. This machine measures NOX and particulate pollution from diesel by time of day. We will also hang small diffusion tubes on lampposts. The tubes record NOX only over a period.

    Friends of the Earth (FOE) will help with a project in the autumn that involves children and parents. We are also liaising with Transition Town Kensal to Kilburn and Brent FOE. We have been pleased to learn that the new Mayor of London plans to launch a major consultation on combatting air pollution soon and that Brent will be consulting on a revised Air Quality Action Plan. When we have results from our monitoring project we expect to make recommendations for action by individuals, Brent, the Mayor and probably national government too.

    The CAPS group met on 1st June with officers from Brent Council and national FOE in support. You can find a link to the notes of that meeting and more information about CAPS on our Environment Action Group page.

  • Annual bird walk report

    Fortunately the birds in the park were undeterred by overcast and windy weather that greeted the smaller than usual number of walkers that joined us on 21st May. The birds were active everywhere and altogether the five walkers spotted 17 species. It was good to see a pair of Blue Tits flying to and from a nest entered via a tiny hole in the soffit board above the café. Less surprising were another pair in a purpose-built suspended nest box in the woodland walk, close by a hole in a tree from which Parakeets were coming and going. The pitch and putt course yielded three handsome Mistle Thrushes, two Goldfinches and a Great Spotted Woodpecker which seemed to have been using the cut-off section of a newly pruned willow branch for drilling practice. Finally a quick recce of Chevening Road east produced the hoped for Swift. Here is a full list of the birds spotted.

    Name Number
    Blackbird 4 male and female
    Chaffinch 4
    Crow 4
    Goldfinch 2
    Blackbird 4 male and female
    Chaffinch 4
    Crow 4
    Goldfinch 2
    Gull, Herring (Black-Headed) 2
    Magpie 2
    Parakeet 4
    Pigeon, Feral Many
    Pigeon, Wood 1
    Robin 2
    Starling Many
    Swift 1
    Thrush, Mistle 5
    Tit, Blue 4
    Tit, Great 2
    Woodpecker, Great Spotted 1 female
    Wren 2