The Mayor is responsible for the planning and development of the policies that will ensure that the services required by the Londoners are delivered effectively and equitably. Mr Johnson’s policies are to cover key issues like transport, housing, environmental and climate concerns and economical sustenance among others.
One of the key responsibilities of the Mayor is the budget. He/she has an obligation to set out spending on a yearly basis in order to implement the plans and policies and distribution of resources to the four main participants of the Greater London Authority.
The Environmental Policies
Among other important policies, the environment has been a major focus for both former Mayor Ken Livingstone and Mr Boris Johnson. A review of these policies, in summary is outlined below with also an examination of the implementation or lack thereof.
Analysis of Environmental Policies
- Air Quality Strategy
In this policy the main focus is to improve the air quality by strategically implementing a number of plans. It aims at the reducing air pollution on both domestic and commercial scale and providing incentives and initiatives for the majority to follow. The London.gov.uk, as published in the Mayor's Air Quality Strategy (London.gov.uk. 2012), identifies causes of pollution as being emissions from homes, transport, new developments and workplaces.
The outline seeks to reduce the level of pollution from the aforementioned sources by addressing transportation issues through channels like introduction of less polluting buses, widening the Low Emission Zone to cater for bigger vans and buses, encouraging the use of electric cars and cycling and the raising of general awareness of the public’s need to take part in this scheme.
On domestic and non-traffic scale, the Mayor is aiming to reduce the carbon footprint by making homes and workplaces more energy efficient and this is said to be achievable by running retrofit schemes, setting new targets for boilers and heat and power systems, engaging boroughs so as to achieve less pollution from new developments and again raising public interest in the lowering of air pollution
- The Mayor’s Climate Change Mitigation and Energy Strategy
This policy is an additional measure to the one above and it focuses on further reducing Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions with the view of contributing to the war against global climate change. The Mayor’s office intends to do this by putting into action a number of strategies that include the following:-
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The lowering of CO2 to contribute to the global target of 50% of 1990 levels of greenhouse gases by 2050. This is said to be achievable by strategically running the retrofit programmes within London
- Taking optimum benefits of the economic gains from the transition by taking part in the £3 trillion low carbon goods market and services that expected to continue growing on a yearly basis.
- The avoidance of a future energy gap by securing reliable energy efficient infrastructures are put in place or support for those that are already under development.
- The Water Strategy
In this policy the Mayor sets out plans on how to conserve water and improve efficiency in the using of this resource on both domestic and commercial scale. It outlines a number of steps that should be taken in wanting to achieve this and some of them include retrofitting and ensuring that new developments are efficient and water-metered. One of the keys elements that is raised in the strategy is the metering of every household in London by 2025 as this is argued to be the fairest way of paying water and how it will help people realise their spending on this commodity.
Among other things there is the management of water in drainage systems and the disposal of water waste. This part of the strategy focuses on how to effectively direct rainwater drained to minimise flash-floods in London and the other part dealing with wastewater as this is said to be a challenge since London uses combined sewer systems.
The combined sewers mean that when rainwater is drained it goes into the sewer pipes and for the system to cope with rain, there is often times when it has to be spilled into Thames Tideway untreated. Though this spillage will be diluted, in this day in age you wouldn’t want to imagine a situation where sewer goes unattended, especially in a city like London. Now to redress this system which was designed in the 1960’s the authority is aiming to channel all untreated wastewater to a place where it can be managed before being discharged so as to comply with Urban Waste Water Directive.
- The Mayor’s Business Municipal and Waste Strategies
Waste at both domestic and commercial level is the key focus of this policy. It is divided into two parts with one being household-centred and the other business-centred.
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Business-Centred: aiming at establishing links and relationships with businesses in the management of waste they produce to ensure that the disposal of such is done in a more effective and efficient way, having ripped the full benefits of reusing, recycling and energy creation from the waste. It also focuses on luring in the much needed investments from the private sector to the management of waste in line with global environmental objectives.
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Municipal-Centred: is a London-wide approach targeting the household waste in trying to reduce it and encouraging recycling among Londoners . This is said to be achievable by raising people’s awareness of the effect waste has on the environment. It also aims at setting an emission standard for waste management organisations to follow. There is a mention of infrastructures’ development and support for those specifically designed to contribute to the overseeing of waste.
The Actual Picture on the Ground
As is with every written action plan, there tend to be some variances with what has been actually done to instrument it. In the case of the Mayor, there are without doubt some results that can be looked at so far in terms of the environmental policies that were published, but what remains to be determined is whether they lived to expectation or fell short of the desired targets. The next part of this discussion will focus on examining the outcome and whether they can be credited for what they achieved so far or if it’s just one of those things that are easily said than done.
The Business Green website ran a news article in 2011 claiming that the Mayor was bound to miss his target for making homes greener by April 2012, (businessgreen.com. 2011) The report says that of the 200 000 homes pledged to have been completed in terms of improvements that include loft conversions, insulations and the like by April 2012, only around 9000 had actually been seen to. Quoting its source of information as a “written response to Labour's London Assembly environment spokesman”, it goes on to highlight how the Mayor is under pressure to deliver on his plans, citing that the lack of progress to insufficient resources or even rechanneling of the same.
In another report, the Guardian online article claimed that the Mayor was concealing the air pollution problem of London by the use of air suppressant to trap particulate matter in a number of areas (The Guardian. 2012). This is said to give false readings of the actual levels of pollution.
Claiming it to be a letter of complaint raised by 34 Members of Parliament from the Labour party to the environmental secretary, the main issue raised was that of inaccurate readings since these suppressants are said to only work in a short area thus leaving the majority of the space unchecked. It said that this project which has spent £1.5 million to date, was simply acting as glue of the dust particles around the monitoring stations.
General Opinion among Students
In order to evaluate and have a clear perspective of the general public, a short survey was conducted on the students from Greenwich School of Management in regards to the Mayor’s policies. This was aimed at wanting to find out whether there was enough being done that will help an ordinary person or whether there was any areas that they felt should been given more focus.
Of the 23 people interviewed, they were all asked the same set of questions surrounding the effort put in ensuring the smooth running of the forthcoming Olympics games and the long running issues of interest, in particular the environmental management. About 5% expressed confidence in the office of the Mayor’s ability to deliver on its policies while 65% thought that for as long as projects like the Olympics are happening, little or no focus will be given to plans that go beyond such an international affair. A few showed little or no interest in the environment concerns but rather preferred projects that will bring prospects of employment.
Further questions where aimed to see if there was any hope of redemption in the near future for London by asking whether they would consider living there permanently. Surprisingly even those that were not much bothered about the status quo also wanted to move out at the earliest opportunity as none answered yes to the question. There was various reasons given of wanting to move out ranging from economical opportunities to cost of living, but the most common one was that of pollution and over-population.
Summary
Having looked at this thought-provocative situation pertaining to the responsibilities of the office of the Mayor, one could easily be swayed to believing that London’s priorities are wrong. It is easy to see how former pledges are easily watered down with little no delivery at the end, as the case might be, but one cannot help but wonder how the Mayor is to achieve a balance of these proposals with the rest of other agendas that he is expected to honour. The issue of the Olympics ceasing the moment might not be far from true but one ought to bear in mind the other alternatives that the Mayor had especially when his policy deliverance rate is affected to a greater extend by the Comprehensive Pending Review. Most of the projects outlined in this discussion are dependent on the government funding them or taking the initiative to lure private money. Where there are little resources being shared, there is always going to be compromises and sacrifices in some if not all the earlier promises.
It is therefore advisable to review policy against result with an open-mind that recognises that there are other factors that might have hindered desirable outcome. Whether these were known beforehand or not will always be a debate for another platform and mainly politically oriented.
Bibliography
BBC News (2010). London Development Agency to cut 200 jobs by April. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11636923. Updated at 19:09, 29 October 2010 [Accessed 26 April 2012]
http://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/MAQS%20Executive%20Summary%20FINAL.pdf [Accessed 26 April 2012]
London Development Agency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Development_Agency [Accessed 26 April 2012]
London.gov.uk (2012) Role of the Mayor http://www.london.gov.uk/who-runs-london/mayor/role [Accessed 26 April 2012]
London.gov.uk (2012) The Mayor’s Air Quality Strategy
Nichols. W Business.com (2011) Mayor Boris expected to miss another green targethttp://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2042574/mayor-boris-expected-miss-green-target [Accessed 26 April 2012]
The Guardian (2012) Harvey. F Boris Johnson accused of hiding London air pollution http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/24/boris-johnson-london-air-pollution [Accessed 26 April 2012]