This article was last updated on April 16, 2022
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London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has decided to sell the controversial water cannon bought by his predecessor, Boris Johnson, following the 2011 riots. The three crowd-control weapons were bought by former London mayor for £90,000 in 2014 but the following year Home Secretary, Theresa May, refused to give permission for them to be used on safety grounds.
Announcing his decision to sell the machines, Mr. Khan explained that an additional sum of £325,000 has been spent on them so far, hence he has decided to use the money raised from their sale to tackle gang crime. The cost incurred so far included the machine’s purchasing, fitting and repairing the machines along with £970 spent on installing radios and CD players. In his remarks, Mr Khan vowed to save about £175,000 in maintenance costs across the remaining eight years of the equipment’s lifespan. Mr Khan elucidated that “it beggars belief that such a huge amount of taxpayers’ money has been wasted on paying to store these redundant machines.”
Conservative London Assembly member, Keith Prince, commented that “although they cannot currently be routinely used, the Met can apply for a special licence to deploy water cannon were we to have a repeat of events like the 2011 riots.” Prince added that “these water cannon have been used to train officers for deployment in Northern Ireland for the past two years and could provide a vital service on London’s streets tomorrow if required.”
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