Doug Ford speaks in London, Ont. [Video]

London’s building boom has pushed the downtown to the limit of its sewage capacity.

On Monday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford was in London to announce an investment of almost $24 million to support more residential development in the downtown core.

The provincial contribution will offset about three-quarters of the cost to install a larger pipe to carry sewage from Downtown London to the Greenway Wastewater Treatment Plant.

City hall is picking up the remaining costs.

“How can you build more homes if you don’t have proper water, wastewater, and sewer systems to build the homes?” asked Ford. “So we’ve stepped up in a big way.”

Eliminating the sewage bottleneck will unlock capacity to build an additional 17,576 residential units in the downtown.

“We are fully committed to the province’s goals of building more housing in this community, and that is why the infrastructure in the City of London is so incredibly important,” said Mayor Josh Morgan.

The current …