Healthy Waterways Strategy
The third and final phase of Healthy Waterways London is to create a strategy setting out how local councils, the Mayor of London, the Canal & River Trust, and other stakeholders should work together with the boating community to achieve clean air and a sustainable environment for everyone.
Local councils are required by law to write Air Quality Action Plans, setting out how they will achieve the legal air quality limits in order to protect public health.
Sometimes these action plans note the contribution of canal boats to local air pollution, but all too often the boating community is forgotten about during the process of developing plans and strategies to protect health from environmental hazards.
The Healthy Waterways Strategy will take a different approach. It will work for the mutual benefit of London’s boating community as well as other people living, working or learning alongside London’s canals and rivers. It will be co-designed with members of the boating community so that it takes account of the challenges and opportunities experienced by boaters.
The purpose of the Strategy will be to:
Draw together the findings from the first two phases of Healthy Waterways London (community survey and co-designed awareness-raising campaign) to produce a concise, representative overview of how air pollution is affecting boaters in London, and what clean air means for the community
Highlight the challenges faced by London’s boating community when it comes to making sustainability improvements to boats, including the lack of infrastructure and the absence of funding support that would be available for people living in buildings
Recommend support for canal boating communities, focusing on how local authorities, the Mayor of London and other stakeholders can work with and empower the canal boating community to tackle air pollution and safeguard health
Feature case study examples of where boaters have made changes to their boats or activities to improve sustainability, reduce air pollution or create a healthier living environment, and to signpost opportunities for replicating these successes
Advocate for targeted support or policy change to remove barriers and enable meaningful collaboration between boating communities and other stakeholders towards shared sustainability and health ambitions
The Healthy Waterways Strategy will be developed during 2026 and will be published early in 2027.
We want to hear from you!
We are keen to hear from anyone who would like to share a project or improvement you have made to your boat to make it more sustainable. Whether this was a small but effective fix or a wholesale transformation, we would love to hear about it. Please use the form below to share your experience.