For years I drove the A40 into London, and on most mornings I could see a haze hanging over the city ahead.
I knew it was pollution, and I always wondered why nobody was tackling the air itself. Electric vehicles have their place, but they will never solve this on their own — there are still brakes, tyres and decades of existing traffic.
One morning, stuck on the Greenford flyover where you can see right across London, I noticed the street lights lining the road. Thousands of them, already powered and already standing exactly where the pollution is worst. What if each one could clean the air around it?
My background is hands-on construction — groundworks, foundations and practical installation — so I’ve always thought about ideas in terms of how they’d actually be built and fitted. I spent a long time researching and stress-testing the concept, turned it into a full business plan, and brought in an independent engineering consultant to model it. Then I found a published study from Hong Kong, where roadside filtration units had been put on real streets and measurably improved local air. The idea worked — nobody had built it into a complete replacement lamppost.
That’s what we’re doing. It’s early days, and I’d rather be honest about where we are than oversell it. But every step so far has made me more certain this is worth building.