London Mayor Sadiq Khan and the London Recovery Board have jointly launched a £1.5bn infrastructure investment package, designed to reduce the city’s emissions and water footprint while kick-starting the local economy as lockdown eases. The money will be spent upgrading Greater London’s gas network, to improve the security of supplies and prepare for higher proportions of hydrogen; improving water infrastructure, in a bid to reduce leakage by 20% and pollution incidents by 30%; and readying electricity infrastructure for the electric vehicle (EV) revolution.
On the latter point, Khan has welcomed the UK Government’s decision to spend £2bn on initiatives designed to incentivise walking and cycling. The package, announced on Tuesday (28 July), includes a bike repair voucher scheme, e-bike rental scheme, measures to help doctors prescribe cycling and funding for local authorities seeking to improve bike infrastructure. “It is essential that infrastructure initiatives are utilised to serve all Londoners as we work to recover from this pandemic and to build back better with a fairer and greener economy,” Khan said.
Under the London Environment Strategy, launched in May 2018, the capital is striving to become the “greenest” city in the world by mid-century. The plan sets out ambitious targets of increasing London’s current solar PV capacity by 20 times by 2050, reducing CO2 emissions by 40% by 2020 against a 1990 baseline, and introducing zero-emission zones in some town centres by the end of 2020, five years ahead of the previous target, to assist businesses with the uptake of electric vehicles.
Source: Edie
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