Sian Berry, the Green candidate for Mayor of London, has welcomed today’s YouGov poll in which Londoners say she is jointly most trusted to improve the city’s air.
But she also warns that her fellow candidates for Mayor – including Zac Goldsmith, with whom she shares first place in the poll – have policies that will make London’s air pollution worse not better.
Their support for major new road-building projects – which are likely to intensify the crisis – is at the heart of the London Green Party’s vote last night to set “red lines” as a basis for talks on a possible second-preference endorsement on 5 May.
Sian said today:
“It’s good that Londoners are responding positively to my comprehensive plan to tackle air pollution. But policies are more important than polls and the other candidates have a very long way to go on air pollution. That’s why Clean Air in London, which scored my policies 10 out of 10, gave Sadiq Khan five out of 10 and Zac Goldsmith a woeful three out of 10.
“The red lines the Green Party agreed last night for considering second preference endorsements have the health of Londoners at heart, and the other parties need to listen to us. In particular, until Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan rule out building major new roads that will worsen air pollution – most notably the Silvertown Tunnel – they cannot be trusted to fix the problem.”