Horse trading to boost walks in London

13 December 2007

The £9M annual capital fund for London borough walking schemes stands to be increased, if the Green Party can come to an agreement over the mayor’s budget.

Darren Johnson, Green London Assembly member, this week published a list of projects that he wants the mayor to fund, in return for his crucial vote in support of Livingstone’s budget. The assembly can only block his budget with a majority of two-thirds of members.

The Green Party said the schemes, which include a feasibility study into making 20mph limit the norm across the capital, and creating a central London pedestrian zone, mostly ‘go with the flow’. ‘We’re asking the mayor to commit to things which are already policy priorities for him. It’s encouraging him to go a little further, a little faster.’

For example, the party wanted Livingstone to increase funding for London borough walking projects, which, at £9.2M in 2008/09, had already risen. But one point that will be impossible for Livingstone and the Greens to compromise on is the former’s proposal to build a six-lane Thames Gateway Bridge. Livingstone wants to press ahead with the project, which he sees as vital for the regeneration of the Thames Gateway, but Johnson is calling for a ‘thorough, independent and transparent re-assessment of a wide range of alternatives’ to the bridge.

Geoff Pope, deputy-chair of the Greater London Assembly’s transport committee, agreed there was ‘much more scope to promote walking’. An increase in spending on borough walking projects should be possible without any increase in the GLA council tax precept, or any rise in fares. ‘There’s plenty of scope for TfL to make efficiencies to deliver many of these things,’ said Pope.

The assembly’s budget and transport committees still wanted to know, however, where the estimated £1bn cost of placing the Metronet public-private partnership into administration would come from.

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