We are stepping up our campaign to Stop the Silvertown Tunnel.

■ Our three years of lobbying, building on six years’ previous work by an earlier campaign, has not been listened to by City Hall. The Mayor is pressing ahead with the project, despite having no social licence to do so.

■ The Mayor has put himself in the same camp as the politicians at the COP 26 talks in Glasgow, who responded to the climate emergency with “build back better blah blah blah”.

■ We intend to expand our campaign across London, and bring together community action, workplace action and direct action.

Actions

Saturday 22 January, 2022, 11.0am-2.30pm. Action Planning Meeting, at the Waterloo Action Centre, 14 Baylis Road, London SE1 7AA (2 mins walk from Waterloo station). All welcome, in person or remotely. Register here.

Details of all actions on the Stop the Silvertown Tunnel web site.

What the money is for

Our £2500 Fighting Fund will cover hire of halls for meetings; flyers and publicity; and legal and other expenses. We will make our accounts public.

We have raised our original target of £2000, and will keep the appeal open until after our Open Meeting on 22 January.

The background

The Mayor of London is planning to build the Silvertown Tunnel, a four-lane road tunnel, a few metres east of the Blackwall Tunnel. The project would push more road traffic through Newham and Greenwich.

■ Local: the tunnel would exacerbate air pollution problems in Newham, already one of the country’s worst-polluted boroughs, and Greenwich. Parents are already moving their children out of local schools for fear of the fumes.

■ Global: the tunnel, like all big road building projects, would boost greenhouse gas emissions and add to the climate emergency.

■ There are alternatives: the tunnel would cost £2 billion+, that could be spent on public transport, bike lanes and other projects to make our city cleaner, better to live in and easier to travel in. We need projects for local people, not for haulage companies, City Airport and other businesses.

See more at stopsilvertowntn.com , and on Twitter @silvertowntn