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Ken blasts Boris for ditching 100 Public Spaces programme
1 August, 2008
Former mayor of London Ken Livingstone has launched a stinging attack on his successor Boris Johnson, accusing him of cost cutting and “hypocrisy” following BD’s revelation that he has axed the 100 Public Spaces programme.
Speaking exclusively to BD, Livingstone said Johnson’s decision to shelve the pedestrianisation of Parliament Square was appeasing motorists.
“This is an administration that is basically cost cutting,” he said. “Boris doesn’t want to end in upsetting the motorists and the AA… It should be an amazing world square, not a squalid traffic roundabout.
“Compared to what he was saying in the election it’s hypocrisy. He went on about beautiful London…[but] he’s just another bottom-line merchant.”
The mayor’s decision to subsume Design for London – the 18-month-old 100 Public Spaces sponsor – into a larger “land and infrastructure” unit at the London Development Agency would also be a “disaster” for the capital, Livingstone predicted.
“Basically what they are saying is that design becomes secondary to whatever the immediate priorities emerge to be on the site,” he said.
“We specifically created Design for London… so that it wasn’t always subordinated to whatever the transport, planners or the LDA developers wanted. It had to have a direct line to the mayor. Until we did that most of what the LDA designed was unimaginative.”
Livingstone also lashed out at Johnson’s key planning adviser, deputy mayor Simon Milton, who he said had “insular views” on planning in the capital.
“Milton represents the most narrow interpretation of the boroughs’ view, which is broadly that the rest of the world should just go away and leave Westminster… on its own,” he said.
BD revealed this week that 100 Public Spaces was being quietly dropped by Johnson. Many prominent schemes, including Richard MacCormac’s Victoria Embankment project, are set to be shelved, although others such as Farrell’s Tottenham Court Road proposal are expected to go ahead as stand-alone projects.
The programme has been dogged by slow delivery, with just five projects completed to date, six years after it was launched by then mayor Ken Livingstone.
These latest moves cast further doubt over the future role of DfL chairman Richard Rogers, a fervent advocate of transforming London into a pedestrianised city akin to those in continental Europe.
The advisory group he chaired at DfL has been scrapped in favour of a smaller panel of experts advising the mayor directly. Despite meeting Johnson last week, Rogers has yet to accept an offer to join it.
The new directorate, to be led by DfL director Peter Bishop, has a £70-80 million budget compared with DfL’s £3.2 million. It will take responsibility for area planning, land holdings, and environmental and climate change programmes at the LDA, which is itself under review.
Livingstone begins hosting his own Saturday lunchtime radio show on LBC 97.3 from 30 August.
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Readers' comments
No! Boris himself should be axed. Not only has Boris has again proved he doesn't really care about London, but he has betrayed the people who voted for him. 100 Public Spaces promised to deliver improvements to the public realm, not only in Westminster, but across the whole of London, including the supposedly neglected suburbs who voted him in. This kind of policy threatens a return to the dark ages of the 60's and 70's when pedestrians become an inconvenience to transport planners, and brought us such planning disasters as Elephant & Castle, the Bullring in Birmingham, Maid Marian Way in Nottingham.
Ken really needs to know when to throw in the towel...