The judicial review at the High Court came to an end last week in a court crammed with locals desperately concerned about rising levels of pollution in East Greenwich and Tower Hamlets. Barrister, Jenny Wigley, who represented locals’ interests, said: “There was a failure to require or to take into account the need for an assessment of the ships’ emissions alongside the road transport and other emissions caused by the development.’ However the barristers representing Greenwich Council and the developers, Barratt London, claimed that they only needed to comply with guidance set out by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in 2009.†1 According to that guidance you don’t need to consider Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) from ships, if the ships fuel contains less than 1% sulphur.†2 A ruling hasn’t been made yet but the judge made it clear he was unable to impose any kind of sanction on Greenwich Council as the case failed to prove there had been an ‘error of law’. So, basically we lost. Attached is an account in The Wharf, which has followed the issue from the point when most of us where aware developer Barratt London and Morgan Stanley Real Estate were building a toxic cruise liner Teminal on our doorstep. Hopefully there will be more news to follow. Mayor Sadiq Khan has promised to clean up London’s air. We can only hope he introduces measures to mitigate the effect of pollution in the area. Indeed on his website he says: "I want to be the Mayor who makes London one of the world’s greenest cities. Environmental checks are not simply a side concern to be weighed up against economic and social benefits. A greener future is central to my vision for London, to the kind of city I want my children to live in. I want, for all of our children, a city in which the air is clean, green space is accessible, and the energy we consume is increasingly drawn from renewable and local sources. And I want them to work in an economy which leads the world in the new low-carbon technologies and industries that represent the jobs and businesses of the future."†2 Footnote(s) 1. TG09 guidance set out in 2009 by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). 2. http://www.sadiq.london/a_greener_cleaner_london