Doctors have accused Sadiq Khan of betraying his commitment to view pollution as a social justice issue, as they handed in a letter to his office calling for him to cancel a major new road tunnel.
The Silvertown tunnel will pass beneath the Thames between Greenwich and Newham, one of London’s most deprived riverside boroughs. Experts say it will massively increase air pollution faced by some of the capital’s poorest people.
Holes have already been dug either side of the river and components for the boring machine, which will dig the four-lane tunnel, are being transported to the northern end, with drilling due to begin this spring.
According to TfL estimates, it will cost about £2bn over 30 years, making it Khan’s biggest infrastructure project as mayor of London.
On Thursday morning, doctors gathered in their scrubs at the Greater London authority’s new headquarters in Newham, where they handed in a letter, signed by 125 health workers, telling Khan there was “no excuse” not to cancel the tunnel.
Silvertown, the letter said, would “funnel traffic, including heavy freight vehicles, into areas of deprivation which already suffer disproportionately from so many adverse social determinants of health.
“You, as mayor of London, have the power to cancel the Silvertown tunnel. There is no excuse not to. It makes no sense and is a health and environmental hazard. We urge you to put a stop to it, to invest the money in projects that will benefit people’s health and reap the rewards of savings to the NHS that such beneficial policies would bring.”
The action came exactly a week after the mayor had convened a summit on clean air in London’s capital, where he had said it was the poorest Londoners, least likely to own a car, who suffered the most from air pollution. “For me the issue is very simple: it’s one of social justice,” he said.
Dr Jackie Appleby, who helped coordinate the letter, said she could not see how Khan could reconcile his position on pollution and social justice with building the tunnel.
“The Silvertown tunnel is completely contrary to his position,” the Newham GP said. “If he really thinks that air pollution is a social justice issue he needs to stop the Silvertown tunnel – end of. Because there is no doubt that that tunnel is going to bring more pollution into Newham.
“Kids in Newham already have lungs that are 10% smaller than kids who live in less polluted parts of the country, and we also have 40,000 excess deaths a year from air pollution across the UK. We don’t know how many of those are in Newham but there will be a disproportionate number of them, obviously, because air pollution is higher.
“So we’re hoping he’s going to reconsider [and] actually think about investing the money in more healthy options.”
Last June, a report from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, backed by some of the UK’s leading climate scientists, found that the development was incompatible with the Greater London authority’s aim to become carbon-neutral by 2030.
Seb Dance, the deputy mayor for transport, said the mayor was taking “bold action” to improve London’s air quality. He stated that the Silvertown tunnel would “massively reduce the chronic congestion problems” associated with the nearby Blackwall tunnel, which has frequent closures leading to congestion.
“Both tunnels will be tolled and, when combined with our overall policy of reducing car use across Greater London in favour of active and public transport options, the Silvertown tunnel will help reduce congestion and poor air quality around the Blackwall Tunnel area without increasing the volume of traffic crossing the river.”
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This article was amended on 24 February 2022. An earlier version said that the tunnel connected Woolwich and Newham: in fact it connects Greenwich to Newham.
