The 15,000 tonnes carbon footprint of TfL's Dalston concrete slab

The permission and funding to extend the East London Line to Dalston was already in place and proceeding when TfL proposed rafting over Dalston Junction railway cutting to build a bus station and “transport interchange” on top of it. The dense revenue-generating development of flats for private sale, on both TfL's and Hackney's sites, and the £millions subsidy by Hackney, is driven by the need to fund the estimated £39million costs of the concrete slab. This amounts to over £3million per bus stand.

There will be over 75 concrete lorries arriving in Dalston every day for months once construction starts. Yet the authorities claim that the developments, with “eco-homes”, wind turbines and green roofs on the towerblocks, are “environmentally sustainable”.

OPEN has estimated, with advice from consultants to The Carbon Trust, that the carbon emissions to construct the reinforced concrete slab alone will produce approximately 15,000 tonnes of CO2. This is equivalent to the GLA's electricity bill for the next 12 years or the GLA’s Mayor Ken Livingstone, or Hackney’s Mayor Jules Pipe, flying return to New York continuously for the next 34 years.

This gross waste of financial and natural resources to construct the Dalston slab has been authorised by the GLA's and Hackney’s Mayors. OPEN would regard anything more than a one-way ticket to New York for them as a further extravagance.