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AUG 9
Swarm the entry to A102 in protest against the Silvertown Tunnel
Extinction Rebellion Greenwich and 3 others
Tomorrow at 7 AM – 9:30 AM
· 20°C Rain
The Angerstein Hotel
108 Woolwich Road, SE100 London, United Kingdom
Extinction Rebellion Greenwich — So excited to see you all at our swarm on Friday – let’s raise the roof so everyone knows about this toxic tunnel & let Sadiq Khan know that he is the one who needs to “Let London Breathe” by scrapping his polluting policies.
Basic details Meeting point: South West corner of the Angerstein Roundabout, near A102 slip road.
Time 7am for briefing (20 minutes)
Roadblocks will operate for 6 minutes at a time. End time: 9am.
What to bring Rain gear – could be a wet morning!Treats & biscuits for rebels & drivers – windscreen washing has been suggested! Enough drinking water for yourself Love & rage
Very hard to predict what kind of numbers we’ll have. We have a number of plans depending on how many people turn up.
Would be great to have some people tweeting / posting on social media
If we have anyone coming who’s willing to join me on well-being that’d be great.
Would be good for people to make themselves known if they are;
• De-escalation trained
• First aiders
• NOT NVDA trained (still come, but we’ll make sure you’re buddied up with someone who is).
“Adding car lanes to deal with traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity.” — Lewis Mumford, 1955.
On the morning of August 9th we will be swarming the roundabout feeding onto the A102 from Woolwich Road to protest plans to build the Silvertown tunnel.
Below is further information on why the Silvertown Tunnel is such a bad idea – shockingly we’ve found very few local residents know it is even happening – despite the fact that they will be the ones suffering the effects of added pollution. At the swarming we will be handing out leaflets and raising awareness.
75% of traffic going through the Blackwall tunnel comes from outside London – so if we get the numbers we would also like to have a second site further along the A2 to disrupt them also.
All welcome, especially any rebel riders who may be free.
Silvertown Tunnel is a planned new Thames road crossing, from Greenwich Peninsula north-east to Silvertown, roughly under the cable car route. It will be bigger bore than Blackwall Tunnel, allowing larger HGVs with an HGV lane. The RiverLinx consortium chosen to build the tunnel will recover the £1 billion cost by tolling both Blackwall and Silvertown Tunnels.
Construction is due to start late 2019 and last 6 years – on the doorstep of Peninsula residents. It will be noisy and polluting, and use over 150,000 tonnes of CO2.
Once the Tunnel is built, HGVs and other traffic will use existing approach roads including the A102, causing more congestion and pollution past local schools and homes. Plans are being made for HGV logistics centres near the Tunnel exits on both sides of the river.
We are demanding:
1) Cancellation of the Silvertown Tunnel. It is retrogressive, irresponsible and unaffordable in a climate emergency.
2) Implementation as soon as possible of London-wide distance-based smart road pricing, a progressive tax on driving that will allow us to carefully and democratically balance local congestion and pollution, carbon reduction, and social justice goals.
3) A large scale investment in the quality, reach and frequency of public transportation, walking and cycling infrastructure in South East London (for example the extension of the DLR to the south of the borough and further east to Thamesmead). Then road users can adapt to the introduction of London-wide smart road pricing, and we can achieve the swift and significant reductions in carbon emissions that we need to put in place to avert climate breakdown.⌛
Follow up actions – it’s urgent! – the Tunnel contract is due to be signed in August, and the decision belongs to the mayor.
