London mayor launches £1.8bn river clean-up plan at West Reservoir
Sir Sadiq Khan chose Hackney’s West Reservoir to launch his 10-year Clean Rivers and Waterways Plan, praising the borough’s record on opening up its “blue spaces” as he blamed “decades of neglect” by water firms for the state of the capital’s rivers.
The reservoir, off Green Lanes at Woodberry Down, was awarded £700,000 in 2022 for a series of upgrades and now offers open water swimming, sailing and kayaking — the kind of transformation the Mayor says he wants replicated across London’s 600 kilometres of rivers and waterways.
Councils like Hackney “have been great working with us”, Sir Sadiq said, adding that they “deserve credit”.
The plan aims to turn London’s waterways into swimmable areas where wildlife thrives, starting with 10 strategic locations across the city — among them the Upper Lea Valley in north London and the Lower Lea Valley and Royal Docks to the east, both bordering Hackney’s stretch of the Lee Navigation.
City Hall pledged a further £2.7million on top of £13.5million already promised, while partners including Thames Water will fund the project to the tune of £1.8billion.
‘That’s unacceptable’
The Mayor named Thames Water as one of the key culprits for dumping sewage into the city’s rivers, but said the firm had recognised the consequences and agreed to commit £1.7billion over the next five years to depolluting the water.
“This is the most ambitious plan to clean up rivers and waterways across the globe,” Sir Sadiq told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) at the West Reservoir.
“We as a city have 600 kilometres of rivers and waterways. But there’s been decades of neglect and pollution which has led to local communities not having access to blue spaces, and it’s also led to the habitats being damaged so there’s less wildlife.
“When I first ran to be Mayor in 2016, I was told it would take almost 200 years to clean up the air in London. We did it in nine.
On the water companies, he said: “This is water firms recognising the consequences of their inaction and their neglect. In 2023 we had five times as much sewage discharge than in 2022 – that’s unacceptable.
“We’ve got these misconnections in people’s pipes which means sewage is going into rivers. That can’t be right.
“And so Thames Water have done a couple of things which I support. One is investing in cleaning up our rivers and waterways but also the Thames Tideway Tunnel is a remarkable feat of engineering. They will take away around 95% of the storm overflow that goes into our sewers which is really important and hopefully that will lead to less sewage discharge.
“But they have got to recognise one of the reasons we’re having to clean up our river and revive nature is because of their actions over the previous decades.
“I’m pleased that they’ve been around the table working really collegiately with us over the last year to come up with this Clean Rivers and Waterways plan.”
“What we’ve set out to do with this plan is to reverse the decline in our rivers, but also work with other partners to reduce pollution, revive nature, and to revitalise and restore access for local communities.”
Former Hackney councillor
The Mayor was joined at the launch by his deputy mayor for environment and energy, Mete Coban — until two years ago a familiar figure in Hackney politics.
Coban served as the council’s cabinet member for climate change, environment and transport, and represented Stoke Newington as a Labour councillor from May 2014 until he stepped down on Thursday 25 July 2024 to take up the City Hall role.
Also present was former cabinet minister David Lammy, in whose constituency the launch was held.
Although the West Reservoir lies within the London Borough of Hackney, the 2023 review of Westminster constituencies moved the Hackney wards of Woodberry Down and Brownswood into Lammy’s Tottenham seat.
‘Rewire our own brains’
The Mayor pledged to work with local authorities and community groups to keep waterways clean once depolluted — though he warned that some Londoners need to change their attitude towards blue spaces.
“One of the reasons why we’ve had the neglect and pollution is our behaviour as human beings,” he said. “We’ve dewilded our city, we’ve not behaved as good custodians of these rivers.
“We’ve got to rewire our own brains in terms of thinking about these blue spaces like we did about green spaces as well.
“The beauty of our plan today is that by allowing and encouraging and making it easy for local residents to access this blue space, they have ownership. It’s their blue space, which means they’ll look after it more.
“We’ve got to think about good design, making sure there are bins available, making sure there are benches available, making sure there is signage available.
“It’s a win-win because it means that Londoners get to enjoy these great assets, but they also take responsibility for these assets as well.”
Checks and balances
On how the 10 locations will be managed, Sir Sadiq said: “Different councils, different community organisations are involved, and the lead partner in charge of each action is different. It’s not all City Hall or all councils. That will mean that each of us can hold each other to account. Those checks and balances are really important.”
The 10 strategic locations in the London Clean Rivers and Waterways Plan:
- Pymmes Brook, north London
- Salmons Brook, north London
- Upper Lea Valley, north London / Lower Lea Valley and Royal Docks, east London
- Lower Roding, north-east London
- Grand Union Canal, north-west London
- Lower Crane Valley, west London
- River Brent, west London
- Yeading Brook, west London
- River Ravensbourne, south-east London
- River Wandle, south London