Mayor of London announces £5 million funding for public water fountains

The Mayor or London, Sadiq Khan, has announced a £5 million fund to implement more public water fountains.

The initiative is in partnership with Thames Water and is aimed to majorly boost the number of public water fountains in London from spring 2019.

The funding is open to councils, businesses and local groups. This is the latest announcement from the Mayor to reduce single-use plastic and encourage people to refill rather than buy bottled water.

Thames Water and the Mayor of London are both contributing £2.5m to the fund and aim to install more than 100 water fountains across London, adding to the locations for existing fountains.

These existing fountains are popular with the public with more than 8,000 litres of drinking water, the equivalent of 16,000 water bottles, dispensed from the two Liverpool Street Station fountains alone in less than one month.

Sadiq Khan said: “For many years, our public water fountains were discarded and neglected, whilst single-use plastic waste soared. We’re determined to reverse that trend and help deliver hundreds more free public fountains in the capital for everyone to enjoy. There is a real appetite for refilling and I want Londoners to lead the way in topping up on tap water when we’re on the move.”

Thames Water will be responsible for installing, maintaining, cleaning and repairing to ensure the fountains remain safe and clean for all Londoners.

Steve Robertson, chief executive of Thames Water, said: “Nurturing and protecting the environment is a core mission for Thames Water and we are proud of the high quality of our tap water. By making it even more accessible for Londoners on the move we can together limit the use of millions of single-use plastic bottles which sadly end up in landfill or in our rivers and oceans.”