Today (Thursday 20th March), Cllr. Watts Leader of Islington Council, Cllr. Phil Jones Camden’s Cabinet member for Sustainability & Transport and Assembly Member Jeannette Arnold visited City Hall to demand a meeting with Mayor Boris Johnson regarding air quality in the two boroughs.
Earlier this year Cllr. Watts and Cllr. Jones wrote a joint letter to the Mayor requesting a meeting on the issue which he refused to accept.
Cllr. Watts said:
‘After ignoring our request for a meeting, we came to City Hall today to demand that Boris Johnson introduces measures to improve the air quality in Islington and Camden.
Air quality is something we take very seriously and we are doing everything we can, but we need Boris Johnson to stop sitting on his hands over this issue.
The Mayor of London through TFL is responsible for most of the damaging air pollution in our boroughs through the major road networks and the high polluting buses, lorries and taxis that he controls. So he has to take action if we’re to really make a difference.”
Assembly Member Jennette Arnold said:
“Boris has shown time and again his apathy towards properly addressing the major issues we have in London when it comes to Air Quality. If the Mayor doesn’t start taking this matter seriously and putting in place measures to address the poor quality of air we have in London, then we could be heading for a similar scenario to the extreme measures that we’ve seen authorities take recently across the Channel in Paris.”