A few weeks ago, I walked the southern half of the New River Path, from Enfield Town to Canonbury. The two important things to know about the New River is that it is neither new nor a river. It is an aqueduct that runs for 45km from Ware, in Hertfordshire, to Islington, and was constructed just over four hundred years ago, to bring fresh water from the river systems north of London into the city. The scheme initially ran into engineering and financial problems but was completed due to the efforts of Hugh Myddelton, a business leader and entrepreneur in the first half of the seventeenth century, who is memorialised today by a statue that stands on Islington Green, just off Upper Street. The New River Company, an early joint stock company, ran the aqueduct for many years, although it is now integrated into the Thames Water infrastructure and still supplies the reservoirs on the eastern fringes of London, between Hackney and Walthamstow.
Plentiful clean water is an essential prerequisite for civilized urban life, and it is worth remembering that as recently as the nineteenth century, much of London did not have a reliable supply and that there were a significant number of annual deaths from the diseases associated with contaminated water. From time to time the problems associated with poor water management became overwhelmingly obvious to everyone who visited London. Funding for the sewerage system that Joseph Bazalgette built, which helped to rid London of cholera, was prompted by the “great stink” of 1858, when summer heat produced nauseous gases along the banks of the Thames, where untreated human and animal waste had been dumped for many years. Today, we remember Myddelton and Bazalgette with gratitude: no-one in public life would seriously advocate dismantling the clean water supply system, nor would they allow unregulated private interests to jeopardise its integrity.
In 1952, the heavy smog that hung over London during early December caused several thousand deaths and widespread respiratory problems for tens of thousands of other residents. It led to greater regulation of the use of untreated coal in both domestic and commercial fireplaces, following the implementation of The Clean Air Act of 1956. Today, the poisonous particles in the London air are less visible but equally toxic. A research report produced by Imperial College London estimates that between 3,600 and 4,100 people die each year in London due to air pollution. These deaths are mostly older people, who have weakened respiratory systems, however the health effects on children are also significant, with an estimate that on average the life expectancy of a child born in London in 2013 would increase by six months if the air was of better quality.
The most damaging of these pollutants is nitrogen dioxide, and the elevated concentrations of NO2 in many parts of London are worse than most other major Western cities. Since the health benefits of clear air are clearly comparable to those of clean water, one might have thought that there would be a strong political consensus about the importance of improving London’s air quality, thereby raising health outcomes for residents, and reducing the social costs of treating those living with chronic respiratory problems. On the contrary, as anyone who follows City Hall politics will know, this year the supply of clear air has become the central policy question that divides the leading candidates in next year’s mayoral election.
A main source of the pollutant NO2 in the urban atmosphere are the emissions from diesel engine cars. Over the past twenty years there has been a concerted, bi-partisan effort in both regional and national government to reduce the numbers of diesel engine cars and to increase the numbers of electric cars on our roads, and London has been a test site for the public policies that promote this transformation. According to government data, reported by Bloomberg News, in the past six years, sales of diesel engine cars in London have fallen from just under 70,000 per year to only 5,400. Over the past decade, by contrast, the sale of electric engine vehicles has increased from 3,000 per year to 75,000. Pressing ahead with this transition, towards the date when not just no new diesel engine cars are purchased, but also that old diesel engine cars are no longer driven on London’s streets, seems the logical next step for policy. Air quality in London has improved a little in the past few years but is still significantly worse than the levels recommended as safe by the World Health Organisation.
For the past four years, drivers of diesel engine cares in London have had to pay a fixed rate daily charge if they drive their cars within the Ultra Low Emission Zone. At the outset, the ULEZ covered only the centre of London – the City, which is the financial centre, and the West End, which is the old retail and hospitality centre – but its scope was extended in 2021, to cover all of London within the North and South Circular routes, and two months ago it was extended to cover the whole of London. It is now the largest pollution charging zone in the world. (It is worth noting that this tax is specifically aimed a reducing air pollution by shifting drivers from diesel engine to petrol engine or electric engine cars; it is not a green tax aimed at reducing car usage, as part of a campaign to lower carbon emissions. That said, in my case, three years ago I sold my diesel engine car, which would have incurred the daily charge, and I chose not to replace it).
Anyone who drives in the ULEZ during the day or night (excepting Christmas Day) must pay a daily charge of £12.50 if their vehicle does not meet a European defined standard of low emission. Roughly speaking, it captures diesel engine cars that are more than seven years old, and petrol engine cars that are more than fifteen years old. Of the 60% of London households that own a car nearly 90% own a car that is compliant with the new anti-pollutant rules, which means that approximately 5% of London households must pay the charge or must change their vehicle. There is a scrappage scheme, which uses public money to subsidise the purchase of a new car or van.
Despite the fact that very few people are caught by this new charge and those who are have been offered a subsidy to buy a newer, compliant vehicle; despite the fact that the first ULEZ was introduced by the former Conservative London Mayor (and former British Prime Minister), Boris Johnson; despite the fact that the deaths from respiratory illnesses caused by poor air quality are thought to be concentrated in the outer London boroughs where there are higher numbers of older, more vulnerable residents; despite all this, there has been vigorous opposition to the new ULEZ scheme from the Conservative Party, in particular its MPs and local Councillors in the outer London boroughs, and from their candidate in next year’s mayoral election, who professes to be a great admirer of Boris. Why would one of Britain’s major political parties commit itself to the abolition of a policy which they previously championed, and which is improving the health and well-being of the elderly, who constitute their most loyal voting demographic?
One answer might be that the Conservative Party cares less about the mayoral election in London next year, which it is likely to lose once again, than it cares about the general election in the UK, also next year, which it is likely to lose but in which it still hopes to limit its losses. Sending a signal to voters across the UK, that the Conservative Party is pro-driver and anti-tax might gain it some floating votes outside London, reducing the possibility of an electoral rout. Another answer might be that the Conservative Party regrets the spread of locally elected mayors, in cities across the UK, who are leading campaigns for new and better rail services and slower speed limits on urban roads, and who are trying to shift the movement of people and goods from road to rail. These mayors – many Labour but some Conservative – are responding to their local electorates who want better public transport within and between cities, and less pollution and noise in their neighbourhoods. Rural voters, who are on average more reliant on cars and more likely to vote Conservative, might welcome a signal from the Conservative Party that it thinks city mayors should be cut down to size.
I do not know the real reason why the Conservative Party have set themselves up as the champions of pollution and the enemies of public health. The lack of coherent thought in their policy priorities has become increasingly apparent over the past five years, and it seems to me quite possible that they have ended up with the wrong policy as much by accident as by considered choice. None the less, what I am sure about is that history will be kinder to Sadiq Khan, the current mayor, than his contemporary political opponents. Future historians, who study in detail the archival sources that describe his achievement, will pause to wonder why the introduction of the ULEZ across the whole of the city took so long, why diesel engine car drivers only had to pay a modest daily charge rather than being banned altogether, and why Londoners were willing to put up with poisonous air for more than four hundred years after they started the process of giving up drinking poisonous water. None the less, Khan will rightly be remembered as the mayor who brought cleaner air to the whole of London and not just its wealthier parts.
Doubtless, in a couple of hundred years, somewhere in an outer London borough – Uxbridge perhaps? – there will be a statue honouring Sadiq Khan, just as there is a statue honouring Hugh Myddelton in Islington.