Roadworks in Savernake Road

• WHEN Camden Council carry out alterations to our streets, for example this current work in Savernake Road, they discard the 100-year-old granite kerbs and install new granite kerbs.

The old kerbs could be reused as well as the granite paving blocks. But instead they are crushed to rubble. This is a waste of energy from the crushing, the extraction of new granite from a far away quarry, and transportation. This causes a large amount of carbon emissions unnecessarily.

We have previously asked for carbon accounting in the highways department and the adoption of circular economy principles which prioritise reuse of existing elements; but there has been no apparent change to “business as usual”.

There are many aspects of the climate and ecological emergency which are not being addressed by the council, which is why we have been calling for better scrutiny.

The alteration at Savernake Road was not necessary, as it was already closed to vehicular traffic. Because of the dire state of global heating, there should be a halt to unnecessary roadworks in order to reduce carbon emissions over the critical next five to 10 years.

CLIMATE EMERGENCY CAMDEN
www.climateemergencycamden.org