The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has promised that he would tackle the issue of air pollution caused by barges and narrowboats in London, promising to ‘make the same progress in relation to cleaning up our rivers as we’ve made cleaning up our roads.’
The mayor was taking part in his regular question and answer spot on LBC radio, hosted by presenter James O’Brien, when a caller asked if he had plans to deal with emissions around the capital’s canals.
John from Victoria Park called the show and explained the problem alongside the canal where he lived and how it affected him. He cited the impact of diesel engines and the use of solid fuel stoves to burn a variety of coals, pallets and wood.
‘I live in a housing association,’ John said, ‘I’ve been there for 30 years and the smell comes into the house. I’ve run 40 marathons along the canals over the years [but] I don’t run anymore because the air is so polluted.’
He asked asked: ‘have you any plans to clean it up?’
The Mayor replied: ‘Thanks for raising a really important issue and just to remind listeners the reason why this matters if when you breathe in this toxicity it leads to asthma, dementia, cancer, heart disease and a whole host of health issues…’
Host O’Brien interjected: ‘So you’re on this? You’re aware of canals posing a particular problem?’
Khan replied, ‘It’s not just canals, it’s the Thames as well.
‘So Paul,’ he continued, ‘We are aware of this, it’s just there are particular parts of London where the Mayor’s got very little power. Canals is one of them and the Thames is another. But you’ve actually identified the issues that we’ve identified which is the diesel from the barges the narrow boats etc, the stoves as well and what what’s used to burn them, so we we’re doing a number of things working with those responsible for canals and the River Thames trying to address this issue.
‘Part of it is education. Many of those who have barges and narrow boats aren’t aware that they’re breathing in this stuff because they’re burning this stuff.
‘We’ve now got air quality monitors that assesses how good and bad things are and you’ve put your finger on the pulse – it is bad along canals and the Thames but we’ve got plans to clean up our rivers and canals.’
Paul talked about his frustration at trying to get some action taken over the years, having between passed around between the Mayor’s own office, the Canal & River Trust (CRT) and Tower Hamlets, the local authority.
‘It’s one of those issues that gets booted around like a football,’ John said. ‘The CRT says ‘complain to the Local Authority’ so I complain to Tower Hamlets and they say ‘is the smoke black?’ I’ll say no, and they say ‘well, we can’t do anything about it.’
John himself suggested some solutions, including an increased use of solar and the introduction of short-term visitor moorings with shoreline power.
Sadiq Khan added some of his own: ‘There’s a number of things you can do, make sure that the wood’s not damp, make sure that what’s used to heat the stoves isn’t dangerous. You can change the fuel that’s used in the narrow boats and you can better educate people.
‘Paul, just to reassure you, although we’ve got no powers here, we’re taking control of the issue. Your experience is not unique I’m afraid. Even though we’ve got we’ve got limited direct powers we’ve got a huge amount of convenient powers and so, this time next year when we speak, we’ll have set out our plans to address this and we’ll make the same progress in relation to cleaning up our rivers as we’ve made cleaning up our roads and roadsides as well, I promise you.
‘Come back in a year Paul and I mean it, we’ll make sure that’s happened.’