London Plan. Going Nowhere.

In 2017 the Mayor of London launched the initiative to create a new Plan for London dealing with headline topics of Housing, Environmental, Transport, Economic and Health. It’s a big task and to criticise is always far easier than to create.

Four years on, yesterday, the Plan was approved by Government as something to be adopted. One strategy stood out on Transport and that was the aim that by 2041, 80% of all trips in London be made on foot, cycle or Public Transport. We have seen good roads narrowed for the cyclists and the plan is in motion, the Lycra brigade are set to takeover. By foot is healthy but there are fewer Public toilets should you get caught short on your plod. This has been exacerbated of course by Covid as all coffee shops and store toilets are shutdown. There can be no peeing pedestrians and anyway you can’t go out. This of course will come to pass as we are all vaccinated and jabbed again to dabble again.

So let’s look at Public Transport. The adopted plan says we want to improve but I couldn’t see the financial plan that stops the haemorrhage spoken of in previous blogs. Crossrail 2 is spoken of but Crossrail 1 still hasn’t opened. The plan devised 4 years ago in short looks desperately out of date and should have been binned and abandoned a year ago. Yes it’s green it cuddly and the pictures look nice but it’s out of date and touch.

The document says and I quote the statement from the Deputy Mayor for Transport’ TFL and its partners will need to change the way they operate , making every decision with this strategy in mind ‘. This surely is the biggest understatement of all time and is the very reason the whole plan fails. Observations are not solutions and the Plan doesn’t inspire because it doesn’t tell anyone how we are going to achieve this Janet and John world of London with fresh air, green parks and bouncy balls. From my last count the Royal Parks deficit funding was £65m per annum and the Mayor last count was abandoning their funding which will make matters worse.

If we are to fantasise about the future we need to fund the fantasy and not waste hundreds of thousands of pounds preparing Plans that are outdated and undeliverable. TFL as referred to in previous blogs needs completely recapitalising and maximisation of its underlying assets. Let’s make proper plans not jobs for the boys at City Hall.

The City, according to the Plan now has a population of 8.7million and forecast to grow to 11million by 2041. 1.3 million people have left the City in 2020 and the plan is out of date. We are getting rid of the car as fast as we are losing the people and we are losing revenue as we pump up the free air and rides on the bike. Less cars mean less Congestion charge, less emissions charge and less parking tickets. Are the bike riders and pedestrians going to fill that funding gap ? If people work from home are we going to need all the Commuter facilities. As for building 95,000 new homes who can afford to buy one. The sales of £1million homes has doubled making ownership virtually impossible for the young. Again fantasy plans without funding the fantasy.

Plan your Journey ahead, count the cost before you build the house, all mantras that make sense but sense it seems is in short supply. The ability to adapt to be swift of foot is where we are at not a Plan conceived in a bygone era, to gather dust on a shelf. Let’s get real, let’s get going. The Plan starts with the Funding , the Plan goes nowhere without the Funding, just like all of us at present, going nowhere.