Why is Gillingham so polluted ?

From memory, I heard something about the direction of prevailing winds mean we get a lot of both London's pollution, and the Dutch coasts pollution blown our way. It would make sense given Thurrock also is high up on the list.

It obviously could be complete twaddle, but I recall someone mentioning that when I was a kid.
 
The Strand (which I guess would count as Gillingham) I understand was heavily radioactively polluted from washing out the nuclear powered submarines in the old Dockyard.
 
These sort of statistics need treating with caution because they are very specific as to both pollutants and location. This report appears to refer to particulates so road transport, shipping, industry and wood burning (domestic and agricutural) will play a part.

The why not Chatham, or Strood for that matter question is a good one and without knowing the methodology employed in measurement and analysis it's hard to answer. Where are they measuring to get a figure for Gillingham? It's hard to imagine that levels throuhghout the area do not vary widely. In terms of real pollution for individuals these sort of stats give only the broadest of indications. There can be startling variations literally street by street.

I don't underestimate the problem and I think we will have to consider dramatic and difficult changes to improve the situation. I imagine that individuals and groups will consider taking legal action to demand cleaner air as they have already done in London.
 
I think I have the answer. There is such traffic congestion on Gills home match days as half of Kent tries to reach the ground that pollutant levels just shoot up.
 
PhilK66 said:
But why isn't Chatham on the list, barely a mile away?
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They will pick a town that represents all the local towns, otherwise the list would be Port Talbot top and then all the local villages around Port Talbot making up the rest of the top 10. You will probably find the criteria is a given large town and the surrounding 10 miles or so.

They picked Gillingham but could have easily picked Chatham or Colesbrook instead.
 
If our prevailing winds are from the west - hence the east end of towns and cities typically being the poorer areas, ie down wind of factories etc - then I'm not sure how we get pollution from the Dutch coast.
 
When I worked in Gillingham Business Park I remember seeing all the pipes standing out of the ground like candy canes. Someone told me this is because the Business Park is built on polluted land? Could that affect air quality? Please tell me if this is a load of bollox though, as I’ve been blindly believing it for a decade.

I think Gravesend is supposedly high for pollution too, and that’s among the reasons why it’s usually one of the hottest places in the country.
 
No real heavy polluting industry (unlike Port Talbot and its huge steel works). The coal power stations have been closed for a while so my best guess is imported from Europe on the winds (Brexit will fix that :slap::ban::off:)
 
Wayne.Kerr said:
If our prevailing winds are from the west - hence the east end of towns and cities typically being the poorer areas, ie down wind of factories etc - then I'm not sure how we get pollution from the Dutch coast.
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I think it must be with the wind direction. From the West you get London. From the East you get the Dutch coast. From the North you get more industrial shit and from the south you get Saharan sand:grinning:
 
MedwayModernist said:
From memory, I heard something about the direction of prevailing winds mean we get a lot of both London's pollution, and the Dutch coasts pollution blown our way. It would make sense given Thurrock also is high up on the list.
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I think many put Thurrock being on the list down to the Dartford crossing and then the Tilbury Ferry ports/Thames Gateway. The volume of lorries driving through the place is huge. However Dartford also has a hell of a lot of Traffic. More if you consider the fact it’s the Northbound tunnel that’s the nightmare for traffic these days. With the Bridge southbound being fine generally. They are not particularly happy about the additional crossing being planned for Thurrock, increasing air polution, with the air quality as bad as it is already.

I find it weird though that they class Thurrock as a place, but then pick out Gillingham from the Medway towns, rather than ‘Medway’. It’s not really comparing like for like. Much like Medway is formed of Rochester, Strood, Gillingham etc., Thurrock is the conurbation of glorious places like Purfleet, Grays, Orsett, Chafford Hundred/lakeside, Tilbury, Chadwell-St-Mary, Aveley, Ockendon, Stanford-Le-Hope, Horndon on the Hill, and others with a population of 157,705 at the last census. Okay so not as big as the Medway towns at 270k at the last census, but the same principle anyway – it’s a group of fairly sizable towns by themselves.
 
According to BBC southeast tonight Gillingham is the town only on the list as its the only town in Kent with the monitoring system they currently use. So makes the whole thing pointless. As others have said how can gillingham be worse than Dartford when half the day there is 3 miles of stationary lorries and cars stuck at the tunnels.
 
Same as the odd reason Gravesend is often quoted on BBC as the warmest place in England and not Maidstone or Chatham. Gravesend is the place they do the measuring for the whole area.
 
Trev, Gillingham Business Park was built on ex-Army training ground for the Royal Engineers. They practised with earth moving equipment and building Bailey bridges, but other than that, there never was any radio-active, nor gas or other toxic substances used. Nuclear waste from the dockyard was dumped on St. Mary's Island. So anybody living there now and growing veg in their back gardens, once they have harvested their crop, needs to check it in a dark room before consuming it.
 
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