East London News A Force for the community…
LOCAL AUTHORITIES, community groups, schools and hospital are working hard to improve the quality of the air we breathe. Now their efforts have been recognised by the Breathe London awards, organised by Bloomberg Philanthropies in partnership with the Mayor of London.
The awards ceremony took place earlier this month at Vodafone’s London office. The awards recognise the innovation, collaboration, and commitment shown by these organisations as they try to clean up London’s air. The organisers hope that the awards will inspire others to follow suit and set up their own schemes. However, some of the schemes have a long way to go before they achieve real change.
Someone from Tower Hamlets Pollution Team at the Awards. Photo: VodafoneThree
The Local Authority Leadership Award was presented to Tower Hamlets Council for their anti-idling project. The Council had achieved three things:
•Installed 400+ anti-idling signs and carried out 228 patrols
•Engaged 800+ drivers and delivered school workshops
•Reduced NO₂ levels at school hotspots by 19–27%
The Council was praised for running a project based on data and implemented via education – and then enforcement. It was a project which other councils could replicate – working with a single school, a neighbourhood or a whole borough. This work is an excellent beginning and we now have to see how the Council will take it forward. It is a project which any councillor could pick up and operate in their ward – and once schools were covered, they could move on to housing estates.
The Community Collaboration award was won by Knitting the Air, a project begun in Poplar Harca. The project began when someone managed to get a couple of local air pollution sensors put up in Harcaland and then bring women together to knit strips showing pollution levels. When the project began, the Council had close to 100 sensors in all the Borough’s pollution hotspots already, with real time data being displayed on their website. There was some discussion about whether the knitters should knit an image of the Council website, to publicise boroughwide data – rather than data from the two new Poplar sensors. However, the knitters carried on. The project has now involved 130 local residents and over 5,000 hours they have knitted enough strips to take to events and spark new conversations about air quality possible.
●Knitting the Air is holding an exhibition at the Nunnery Gallery, 181 Bow Road, E3 2SJ from 4th-20th September. Why not pop along and see if the knitting raises your awareness of air quality. It is open from 10am-4pm from . to Sunday. The Gallery has step-free access throughout and an accessible toilet. It is service animal friendly but does not have a loop system. Blue badge parking can be found 500m away on Fairfiel Road. For further information, email: nunnery@nowarts.com
●Read more about it:
Tower Hamlets: five years as Tree City of the World
Solving climate emergency – one bike at a time
