In 2019 the Mayor of London awarded a PFI contract to build the Silvertown Tunnel, despite huge opposition from local residents, environmental groups, CLPs, Labour councils, and prominent Labour MPs. The estimated cost of the project has now doubled to £2 billion.
Opposition is multi-faceted; evidence shows that the tunnel would worsen air pollution, traffic congestion and carbon emissions, and is also financially unviable. One impact would be to enable HGVs to cross the river into one of London’s most polluted areas, passing dozens of schools and nurseries where tens of thousands of children play and learn.
Furthermore, research from the Tyndall Centre shows that London’s transport policy is currently incompatible with the rapid decarbonisation required to reach targets aligned with the Paris agreement, and the tunnel would only make matters worse. TfL will be reliant on high traffic revenue from tolling the Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels to repay PFI financing at time when reducing car usage is crucial.… Read on ...
Remember the dead and fight for the living
12:15pm 28 April 2021Click here to register for the meeting.
The covid pandemic again prevents us from getting together in public so join Waltham Forest Trades Council’s zoom meeting to mark Workers Memorial Day at 12:15pm on 28 April.
This year’s focus will be the pandemic and the preventable loss of life and misery from ill health arising from poor preparedness, a refusal to accept the science on things such as the airborne transmission risk, a refusal to act quickly and accept the need for urgent lockdown and to not come out of that too early when it was obvious not to do so, the abdication of our health and safety police – the HSE, and the government’s and employers’ initial refusal to acknowledge the trade unions’ role in this as recognised by strike votes at DVLA, the courts etc.
We will also raise other issues such as decent pay rises and treatment for those who have worked so hard through the pandemic, the fight against the gig economy and zero hours contracts, resisting restrictions to the right to protest and the forthcoming COP26 in Glasgow where the future of our survival on the planet will be debated.