 diamond geezer
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
BoJoWatch: trees a jolly good fellow?
"The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has today announced the closure of The Londoner newspaper saving London nearly three million pounds. A percentage of this saving will be spent on planting 10,000 new street trees as London's new Mayor continues to deliver on his manifesto pledges."
See, I told you. Boris has ditched The Londoner (which he describes as "the Mayor's personal newspaper") and plans to spend some of the saved millions on trees. Very politically astute, swapping newsprint for timber. Some people are impressed. Here's why I'm not.
"The Londoner is distributed to three million homes across Greater London. Had Ken Livingstone been re-elected, Londoners would have spent around £2.9 million next year on The Londoner. By scrapping this, we will save £2.9 million."
The Londoner newspaper used to cost each London family 97p a year (that's 9.7p per copy). Not extortionate, and far less than is wasted producing other London freesheets, but perhaps unnecessary. I wouldn't know, because The Londoner's distribution was so poor that I can't remember the last time I received a copy.
"Boris Johnson's manifesto commitment is to use some of the money saved from The Londoner – around £1 million per year – to deliver our pledge of 10,000 street trees by 2012."
Aha, so only 35% of the money spent on The Londoner is going on trees. The rest will presumably go on other projects, or be used to cut future years' council tax. One thing's for certain, it won't go on trees.
 "The Mayor proposes to work in partnership with charities like Trees for Cities and the London Boroughs to launch a major effort to bring street trees to those areas of London that need them most."
Ooh good. We like Trees For Cities, they're a fine bunch of volunteers who work with local communities to get more trees planted. They're also custodians of the 41 Great Trees of London (one of which is the Lewisham Dutch Elm at the centre of today's photo).
"Rather than dictate from City Hall where these trees should be planted, it is intended that these charities would compile a list of the 40 areas in London that would most benefit from new street trees."
This is an example of the new era of delegation at City Hall. Why make a decision yourself when you can outsource it to someone else instead? And 40 areas isn't many, is it? It's only about one area per borough. Don't expect any of these new trees to be planted down the street where you live.
"On average we will plant 250 trees in each area, and all 40 areas will have trees planted by the end of the four-year Mayoral term."
Ah, so it's 40 areas over the course of four years, is it? That's only 10 areas each year. Less than one location a month. We're talking tokenistic gesture politics here.
"Londoners will be able to vote on the Greater London Authority website to determine the order in which areas are planted."
Oh for goodness sake. This is nothing but a pointless green gimmick. The area that shouts the loudest will get their trees first, and the least web-savvy neighbourhood (probably the area that needs the trees most) will have to wait for 47 months. Boris has merely come up with a cross between Trunk Idol and Twig Brother.
"With a major injection of funds and high profile support from the Mayor, it is anticipated that there is significant potential for tree-planting partnerships with companies and local authorities. Trees for Cities have previously secured significant amounts of match funding for tree planting projects and estimate that each annual grant of £1 million for tree planting would generate match funding of £500,000 from the private and public sectors."
Hang on, the tree planting isn't yet fully funded. One third of the money (and thereby one third of the trees) depends solely on attracting sufficient interest from the private sector. Taxpayers' money will pay for only 6667 trees over the next four years. Scrapping the Londoner will fund fewer than 5 trees a day. That is, quite frankly, pathetic.
"£1.5 million a year for four years is a total of £6 million which, using an average cost of £600 per tree, would give a total of 10,000 street trees over a four-year term."
Ten thousand may sound like a big number, but really it isn't. Boris's grand plan delivers just one tree per year for every 3000 London residents. It's a drop in the environmental ocean, and a mere 1% of what Ken was pledging. I am not impressed.
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