Funding for green spaces to boost air quality in London

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has awarded more than £1.27million in funding to help tackle the capital’s air pollution by improving and creating green spaces.  

Projects include green ‘pollution barriers’ for schools, plus new green spaces for housing estates, community gardens to help improve mental health and wildlife habitats in parks.  

Greening playgrounds with climbing plants across entire walls, hedges, and wider green infrastructure can be beneficial to boosting air quality and reducing exposure to harmful emissions from busy roads.

The winning Community Green Space projects include help for 29 primary schools located next to some of London’s most polluted roads, which will receive a combined total of £400,000 for green infrastructure in playgrounds to reduce children’s exposure to toxic traffic emissions.

As well as the grants, the Mayor has published two new maps that detail London’s green spaces and waterways and can be used to help identify where greater investment in greening would bring significant benefits.

The projects form part of a package of measures to protect children from toxic air that the Mayor is delivering, including helping schools through his air quality audits programme, working with boroughs to restrict road usage outside school entrances, upgrading boilers, tackling engine idling, promoting walking and cycling and piloting indoor air filters.

Sadiq has recently expanded London’s network of air quality monitors, including providing them for many schools. The monitors will help assess the impact of green barriers. These measures sit alongside the introduction of the 24-hour Ultra Low Emission Zone on 8 April in Central London.

As well as air quality schemes the fund is helping a range of environmental projects include creating community gardens, improving parks, and cleaning up waterways. All 78 winning projects were awarded between £5k and £50k each across 26 boroughs and will create and improve 650,000 square metres of green and blue (waterway) spaces –the equivalent of 40 football pitches. The schemes will involve more than 5,000 adult volunteers and more than 40,000 children.