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The Boris audit
27 Apr 2009
Find out how Boris Johnson is delivering on his key promises after his first 12 months as Mayor of London....
Openness and accountability
Pledge: Give Londoners "more bang for their buck" by reorganising City Hall.
Action: More than 120 posts are to go at City Hall, taking the head count down to about 550. Also made similar cuts at the London Development Authority and ordered the same to be done at Transport for London as part of £2.4billion worth of cuts. Pay frozen and bonuses slashed for transport chiefs. Also axed funding for the anti-racism Rise festival saying the £551,000 to stage the event in Finsbury Park could not be justified.
Pledge: Publish all GLA payments above £1,000 and details of advisers' interests online.
Action: Done. All are available on the Mayor's website including stationery and consultancy costs. Register of interests now online - apart from those of environment director Isabel Dedring.
Pledge: Abolish the Londoner newspaper.
Action: Done. Axed after Mayor said move could save £3million a year.
Pledge: Abolish Ken Livingstone's Venezuelan oil deal.
Action: In May the Mayor abolished the £14million oil deal with Venezuela which provided cheap fuel for London's buses and funded half-price bus and tram fares for 250,000 Londoners on income support in return for teams from the Greater London Authority giving environmental advice.
He said the price discount would still apply but was uncomfortable with receiving the money from a country where many live in extreme poverty. Mr Johnson also said the office set up in Caracas to oversee the deal would be closed, saving an estimated £67,000 per year in running and staff costs.
Environment and planning
Pledge: Scrap £25 congestion charge for "gas-guzzlers".
Action: Done. The Mayor has also suspended the third stage of the low emission zone, which charges vehicles according to their carbon emission. He claims the benefit to businesses in the recession outweighs environmental damage, but faced criticism from Green Party campaigners over both decisions as well as the scrapping of the western extension zone.
Pledge: Oppose the third runway at Heathrow.
Action: Has been outspoken in opposition and has promised £15,000 to London councils fighting a judicial review - but has angered environmentalists by proposing a new airport in the Thames Estuary dubbed "Boris Island".
Pledge: Oppose high-rise buildings that affect London views.
Action: Backtracked. Nodded through a 25-storey tower in Ealing as well as two 42- and 32-floor towers in Wandsworth. Claimed he was giving power to the boroughs and left Hazel Blears to order an inquiry into the projects.
Pledge: Reduce carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2025.
Action: Suspending the third extension of the low emission zone will not help. But has begun planting more trees and aims to plant 10,000 by 2012. Has also announced ambitious plans for 100,000 electric cars with charge points becoming a condition of planning agreements.
Pledge: Create 50,000 affordable homes by 2011, spend £60million renovating empty properties and launch a "first steps" scheme to enable Londoners to get onto the housing ladder.
Action: Already reached an agreement with boroughs to build 35,000 affordable homes, but has also admitted that the current climate makes his original target very "tough" to achieve. "First steps" scheme aimed at families earning less than £72,000 has already been launched by the Mayor with a £42million plan for 500 flats. Announced £22million for derelict renovations but this is likely to involve only 3,400 empty homes.
Reader views (2)
Has increased operation costs of 3 bus routes by several million pounds with passengers on 2 routes squeezed into smaller buses of a fixed length that used to get stuck in narrow side-streets. Dogma comes at a price!!
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex, 28/04/2009 18:11
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Johnson is so "open and accountable" that when he took office he cut the Mayor's weekly press conferences to once a month and hasn't held one at all since November.
- Helen, London, 27/04/2009 10:43
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