Mayor slammed over scrapped schemes

01 April 2009

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has come under fire for scrapping a number of transport schemes to meet a funding shortfall ‘of his own making’, and over plans to cut his environment team by almost half.

Transport for London has cut the Greenwich Waterfront bus improvement scheme, and deferred a series of works to compensate for lost revenue from the axed ‘gas guzzler’ congestion charge and the western extension zone – as well as the collapse of Metronet.

It has announced a £9.2bn budget for 2009-10, up from £8.1bn last year but still necessitating cuts. The year will see completion of the Jubilee line upgrade, the cycle hire scheme, and the start of rebuilding at Tottenham Court Road.

But Greenwich Borough Council reacted angrily to the scrapping of the Waterfront bus plans. The council was already dismayed by the axing of the Thames Gateway Bridge, and complained that both decisions were taken without consultation.

London Assembly member, Jenny Jones, attacked plans to defer the £69M North Circular improvements at Bounds Green which, she said, would leave a gap in the Olympic Priority Route Network. She said: ‘There is a hole in the TfL budget and it is partly of the mayor’s own making, since he has cancelled the £25 emissions charge for gas guzzlers and is wasting millions replacing bendy buses.’

Johnson blamed the shortfall on the Metronet collapse and promised he would be relentless in making the case to the Government not to let other projects falter.

Meanwhile, the mayor insists that the shake-up at City Hall is aimed at creating a ‘smaller, more focused’ Greater London Authority (GLA) to deliver ‘better value for money’.

The GLA will downsize its environment team from 35 to 20, in a move that will see it merge with the transport team and culminate in the loss of the environment chief’s position.

The mayor’s office said: ‘Success at tackling environmental issues is not measured by the size of the team at City Hall but by the progress of work on the ground.’

However, Mike Tuffrey, leader of the London Assembly Liberal Democrat group, expressed his concern that Londoners could be sold short by the replacement of staff with ‘expensive consultants’.

Darren Johnson, Green Party assembly member, said: ‘With such big staff cuts, I am concerned about whether the mayor could really deliver on his statutory duties on the environment.’

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