Producer and author, Steve Backshall has voiced his support for the mayor’s plan to clean up London’s rivers.
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00:00Today for me marks the beginning of a real turning point in my journey with water and sewage.
00:08I've been campaigning for about six years now to try and improve the state of our waterways
00:13and it has been mostly a really negative journey but today is the first sign of real hope I've seen.
00:21TV presenter and author Steve Baxhall joined Sadiq Khan at the Walthamstow Wetlands meeting last week
00:31to discuss the plans for Sir Sadiq's cleaning up of London's waterways.
00:37The Mayor announced over £7 million in funding to go towards cleaning up waterways in the capital.
00:46In his manifesto the Mayor promised he would bring London's waterways up to a quote-unquote
00:54swimmable level of cleanliness by 2034.
00:59Supposedly this latest funding will enable large-scale rewilding
01:04and provide funding from the so-called Green Roots Fund for community groups, charities
01:11and others to deliver nature projects for waterways.
01:15Mr Baxhall who has a long history of producing and presenting content around nature and wildlife
01:24has been immensely supportive of the Mayor's projects to reduce water pollution in the capital.
01:31He has argued clean water is a massive part of our well-being particularly in a big city like London.
01:39He also added how he's spent the last five or six years rampaging against Thames water
01:46and against the outages of sewage into our waterways.
01:51I think particularly for a city like London the few natural resources we have have to be treasured
01:58because they're so important apart from anything else to the people.
02:03It's hugely important for our well-being for our state of mind
02:07and also what could be more important to us than the air we breathe
02:10and the water that we have running through our cities.
02:14To take care of that is everything.
02:16So the Mayor ran for re-election with the health of our waterways being a major thing he was going to target
02:23and to see that he has is great.
02:26We hear so much from our politicians that it's just not living up to their promises
02:31and today we're getting a first sign that Sadiq Khan aims to do everything he's set out to.
02:37£1.8 billion pledged to not just sorting out the Thames but 41 other waterways around London.
02:45It is a big big goal and target and I for one really hope he can succeed.
02:51I've got a big year of adventures ahead of me including actually I'm doing an arena tour
02:56a deadly live tour in the autumn.