London Mayoral Elections May 2021
27th April 2021
Credit: "Weekend Walk: BFI to Cutty Sark - Area Around the London Assembly Building" by p_a_h is licensed under CC BY 2.0
London heads to the polls on 6 May 2021
Mums for Lungs, in a coalition with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Choked Up and Medact, hopes this will be a moment for a real change to improve London’s air quality. We want the next Mayor to be a #Mayor4CleanAir.
We’re calling on the next Mayor to:
Expand the ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) to the North and South Circular. Ensuring the expansion of the ULEZ happens as promised in 2021 and subsequently developing a fairer road pricing system will not only benefit millions of Londoners, but is critical to addressing pollution in the most deprived neighbourhoods, and those where people from Black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds are most likely to live. Without an intervention of this scale, the Mayor will struggle to fulfill their legal and moral duty to meet safer limits for air pollution.
Rethink the Red Routes. TfL’s ‘Red Routes’ main road network was planned decades ago for a city unrecognisable today. The network now boasts levels of NO2 pollution 57% higher than an average road. Many low income and vulnerable Londoners live, work, and go to school near these busy roads, breathing higher and often illegal levels of air pollution every day. A bold vision and urgent action plan to rethink and repurpose these roads, along with a world class walking and cycling network, is critical for our health and future generations. Read EDF and The Centric Lab’s white paper here.
Zero-emission buses. Diesel bus pollution hotspots are disproportionately concentrated in areas of higher deprivation. The capital should lead the country in deploying an entire fleet of zero-emission exhaust buses this decade. This would dramatically cut carbon and NO2 pollution, whilst creating skilled manufacturing jobs as part of a green recovery.
And independently of our coalition above, we’re also asking for strong action on wood burning:Tackle wood burning. Between 23-31% of particulate matter (PM2.5) in London is from wood burning. The next Mayor should commit to a high-impact, London-wide public health campaign, set up a taskforce to co-ordinate councils to counter unlawful burning and lobby Government to ban wood burning in London within the next decade.
