The Mayor of London's Annual Report

This is the Mayor’s Annual Report for 2020-21. It covers the period between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021.

The Report is structured under the following themes:

• responding to the pandemic and leading the recovery
• regeneration and economic development
• skills and employment
• culture, creative industries and 24-hour London
• policing and crime
• fire and resilience
• environment
• housing and land
• planning and spatial development
• Team London and sport
• health, education and youth
• communities and social policy
• transport, infrastructure and connectivity.

The year 2020-21 was an unprecedented one and the Mayor made supporting London and Londoners through the Covid-19 pandemic a top priority. This includes responding to the emergency, but also creating, with our partners, an ambitious blueprint for London’s recovery. We explain this in the next section. You can also read more about our response and recovery work in specific areas throughout this document.

This Report updates progress against the Mayor’s seven statutory strategiesReference:1 required under section 46 of the GLA Act 1999. It gives an overview of achievements with more information available on our website in our get involved section and under the strategies and plans section.

Responding to the pandemic

The past year has been a year like no other. London has suffered tragedy and faced challenges on a scale unseen since the Second World War in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

The Mayor, as the chair of London Resilience, established and played a leading role in the Strategic Coordination Group (SCG), which managed London’s emergency response. This included setting up and leading a multi-agency information cell: a first of its kind for London. It brings together live and other information from organisations such as the NHS, Public Health England (PHE), London’s boroughs, Transport for London (TfL) and the Metropolitan Police. The purpose is to track, understand and advise the SCG on how well London is coping with the pandemic.

Throughout, the Mayor worked closely with PHE, NHS London regional directors and other partners to seek assurances and coordinate work across key issues. He has amplified and streamlined vital public health messages, including urging Londoners to follow social distancing rules, get tested and self-isolate. City Hall has also supported the pan-London campaign to promote vaccination.

The Mayor has represented Londoners’ needs to government throughout the pandemic. This includes calling for: face coverings and additional PPE; an effective test, trace, isolate and support system; an increased supply of vaccines in London; protecting our borders; and providing financial support to business, particularly those hardest hit including the creative, hospitality and cultural sectors that have been particularly hard hit.

The Mayor has also engaged directly with ministers, urging them to do more to support vulnerable groups. These include those living in deprived parts of London, ethnic minority communities, homeless people and those shielding. Efforts were made to bring rough sleepers off the streets and into emergency hotels during the pandemic. This created an opportunity to offer healthcare support to a large group of people who often face barriers to accessing GPs and other health services. Over 1,000 people were tested for blood-borne viruses. Those testing positive for HIV and hepatitis C were supported and engaged in treatment.

The Mayor has engaged community groups across London to inform the response of the GLA and partners to Covid-19, ensuring information reaches all Londoners.

In March 2021 the Mayor, with representatives from the NHS, TfL and the National Trust, launched the Blossom Garden in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. He planted the last two of 33 trees to form the first of several blossom circles to be planted across the country. The garden, which local communities helped to design, is a living memorial to: commemorate the city's shared experience of the coronavirus pandemic. It offers a place of reflection for Londoners to remember those who have lost their lives. It also pays tribute to London’s brave key workers who risked their own lives to help others and keep our city moving.

Leading London’s recovery

The pandemic has both exposed and exacerbated disproportionate impacts and structural inequalities. The Mayor’s ambitious recovery programme with partners from across London’s government, business community and civil society will ensure the city builds back better.

The Recovery Board has five key aims, to:

• reverse the pattern of rising unemployment and lost economic growth caused by the economic scarring of Covid-19
• support our communities, including those most impacted by the virus
• help young people to flourish with access to support and opportunities
• narrow social, economic and health inequalities
• accelerate delivery of a cleaner, greener London.

The Mayor’s key objective is to support London’s recovery from the impact of Covid-19. This includes the delivery of the nine missions set out by the London Recovery Board, as well as their draft action plans, and much other contextual work – such as scenario planning for the Central Activities Zone (CAZ). While the Mayor started this work, co-chairing from its earliest stages with London Councils, it is the fruit of one of the most significant collaborations – across all sectors.

Activities thus far have included:

• The launch of Future Neighbourhoods 2030, making £3m available in the first phase and an expected £4.5m for the second phase, to develop visionary strategies to 2030 to tackle the climate emergency and implement pioneering environmental projects, supporting the Green New Deal mission.
• Awards of grants between £12,000 and £15,000 to 10 strategic food partnerships across London, through the Food Roots Incubator programme. This programme is supporting food partnerships across London to grow, develop and become more sustainable. The grants will enable these partnerships to take forward a range of initiatives to address food insecurity.
• The launch of the High Streets for All Challenge, inviting local partnerships to bring forward and co-design high street recovery strategies and proposals. This will kickstart the High Streets for All mission to deliver enhanced public spaces and exciting new uses for underused high street buildings in every London borough, supported by up to £4m of LEAP funding.
• A pledge of over £10m to the London Community Response fund for civil society organisations, giving support and advice to struggling families.
• An accelerated investment of £1.5bn from utility companies, kickstarting the economic recovery in London, including a commitment to target jobs and apprenticeships at younger Londoners from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds.
• Joint work between the GLA and London Councils, together with Bloomberg Associates and the London Recovery Board’s Anchor Institutions Working Group to create and keep jobs for Londoners and promote Good Work principles.
• The Launch of the Adult Education Budgets Good Work Fund, aiming to deliver skills support to Londoners to help them access jobs in sectors key to London's recovery, with digital skills as a particular priority.

Where to find out more

For more information, including on the Board’s nine missions that support these aims, visit the London recovery from coronavirus website hub.

• The Mayor’s Good Growth Fund helps to empower local people, make better places and increase prosperity across London. Projects are delivered in partnership with local organisations and funding used to support recovery, regenerate town centres, and improve high streets. During 2020-1, the Good Growth Fund:
  • supported over 650 cultural and community events
  • safeguarded and created almost 700 jobs
  • created or improved over 14,500 square metres of public realm
  • created, improved or brought back to use nearly 20,000 square metres
  • secured, with our Skills for Londoners programme, £14m of match funding.

A good example of the range of projects the fund supports is the transformation of the Southbank Undercroft. Here the Southbank Centre and Long Live Southbank are working in partnership to expand the iconic skate space. They are also creating a dedicated headquarters for the Southbank Centre’s new young people’s education programme.

• The Mayor announced the £4m High Streets for All Challenge Fund. This invites local partnerships to respond with ideas for how high streets could change so as to respond to changing economic conditions.
• The Mayor’s community crowdfunding activity continued to provide a platform for community-led innovation. Make London focused on grass-roots recovery from the pandemic, and in March 2021, the Mayor pledged £465,000 to 39 projects across London. Campaigns attracted nearly £800,000 in match funding from over 5,000 local business and citizens. Projects include an Islington-based cookery school supporting social integration and an experimental meanwhile programming in vacant retail units led by Kingston’s young people. These local ideas will help improve public spaces, support community hubs and town centres, and bring people together creatively and safely.
• More widely, the Mayor’s crowdfunding programmes have supported 130 successful community-led projects, and in so doing, have
  • brought 30 vacant buildings back into use
  • supported 7,000 volunteering opportunities
  • raised nearly £2.5m in match funding from over 20,000 Londoners.

Some 65 per cent of Londoners told us funding helped them bring people together from different parts of the community.

• Working with Power to Change and Cooperative UK, the Mayor launched a Boosting Community Business London Programme. This offers small grants and business support for organisations looking to establish a community business model. In the first round of funding, nine organisations were supported including:
  • a proposal to bring a disused pub in Lewisham back into use as a community hub
  • a Community Land Trust in Newham delivering social rent homes

• London & Partners, the Mayor’s business growth and destination agency for London, helped secure trade and investment worth £133.5m in Gross Added Value (GVA).
• The Mayor’s London Growth Hub provided over 2,000 of London’s businesses with expert advice over the past year, including how to adapt to Covid-19.
• In partnership with the London Office for Technology and Innovation, we launched Thirty3 – a city-wide procurement platform supporting the best tech start-ups to provide innovative digital public service delivery solutions.
• The Mayor’s Back to Business Fund helped support 200 small and independent business to raise vital funds and stay afloat, rebuild and recover from Covid-19 – including up to £5,000 of GLA match funding.
• Many businesses and jobs in London’s global business, commercial and cultural centre, known as the Central Activities Zone (CAZ), are facing an existential threat from the impacts of the pandemic. In March, the Mayor therefore approved a set of urgent programmes, backed by a £5m fund, to support the CAZ, including a major new campaign and activity to attract Londoners and domestic tourists back to central London’s hospitality, retail and cultural districts as soon as it is safe to do so.

• Over 213,000 Londoners were supported to gain skills via the Mayor’s Adult Education Budget (AEB) during its first academic year (August 2019-July 2020).
• Funding was introduced for all Londoners earning under the London Living Wage and the British sign language entitlement is now fully funded. This ensured that we reached the most disadvantaged Londoners. Of those that benefited, more than half of all learners were from a minority ethnic background and over 70 per cent were women. In addition, almost 20,000 Londoners were fully funded under the low wage entitlement – where they would otherwise had to have paid for their learning.
• We increased funding for English and Maths qualifications. Additionally, and because of the pandemic, the Mayor introduced several measures to support skills providers by addressing funding uncertainty, via our £10.2m Covid Response Fund for example.
• The Skills for Londoners programme supported nearly 4,500 new learners and 370 apprenticeship starts for young Londoners. The Education Capital Programme improves the quality of London’s learning facilities. It has funded over 6,150 square metres of new or improved training and learning floorspace.
• Ninety projects were supported through the Mayor’s £10m Skills for Londoners Capital Fund (SfLCF) Emergency Recovery Support Fund (ERSF) to make learning environments Covid-secure.
• The Mayor’s Apprenticeships Pilot Programme helped another 370 apprenticeships get underway. Over £4.5m of apprenticeship levy was pledged by levy payers to support more apprenticeships in London’s SMEs.
• Over £30m was awarded as part of our four-year European Social Fund (ESF) 2019-23 programme to help disadvantaged Londoners boost their skills. This includes the homeless, ex-offenders, young people and parents. The programme is expected to reach over 40,000 learners and help at least 5,000 into jobs.
• The Mayor’s Digital Talent Programme provides opportunities for 18–24-year-olds to gain digital skills, career advice, and support setting up their own tech business. In 2020-21, it:
  • supported 164 start-up and SMEs to access higher-level skills
  • worked with 252 teachers, trainers, and youth workers to improve their digital skills, knowledge, and confidence
  • helped 277 learners through work placements
  • helped 508 young Londoners to access industry approved learning opportunities to support them to gain essential and career digital skills.
• The Mayor’s Construction Academy (MCA) engaged 1.213 employers during 2020-21. The academy aims to help more Londoners get the skills needed to access vacancies in the capital’s housing construction sites. The MCA also placed over 2,600 learners in sustained employment or apprenticeships. For example, impact, the Royal Docks Internship Programme (RDIP), the Enterprise Zone’s flagship employment and skills initiative, launched in March 2021. RDIP supports local young people into high skilled jobs and offers a 12-month, full time work placement, paid at the London living wage (LLW). A cohort of 16 interns have already been successfully placed with eight local employers (69 per cent are from a minority ethnic background).

Culture and creative industries

• During 2020-21, the Mayor’s funding supported £76.5m in sales, exports and inward investment for businesses in the creative industries. The portfolio included funding for Film London which delivered the UK’s film production Covid-19 safety guidance. This helped to get up to £1 billion of halted film production back up and running. The funding also supported and created thousands of new work opportunities. The Mayor’s funding to Film London, for example, created over 4,000 jobs across film, high-end TV and animation.
• The Mayor’s Culture at Risk Office expanded to support organisations impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. During 2020-21, the Office supported nearly 1,000 organisations and individuals, with over 300 supported through the Mayor’s Culture at Risk Fund.
• The Creative Land Trust was founded by the Mayor in collaboration with Arts Council England, Bloomberg Philanthropies and Outset Contemporary Art Fund. The trust exists to secure long term, affordable space for creatives, ensuring a vibrant future for this critical industry. In March 2021 the trust secured its first building in Hackney Wick, one of the Mayor’s Creative Enterprise Zones. This will provide 180 new permanent creative workspaces. 
• The Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm was established and 14 commissioners appointed after an open application process. The commission has met on three occasions to date and has set out its key delivery areas. These are; improving representation through new commissions, developing guidance and best practice and telling the full story of Londoners.
• The Culture Seeds programme ran from May 2018-March 2020. In total it issued £1m of grant funding to community-led arts, culture, and heritage projects in all London boroughs. We flexed the programme due to Covid-19, extending the completion date of 70 projects. These reached over 27,000 people as both audiences and participants (digital and face to face) during the pandemic. This brought communities together, reduced loneliness and offered creative activities throughout lockdowns and social distancing restrictions.
• The Mayor’s second London Borough of Culture (LBOC) Brent 2020 adapted most of its programme to deliver online, where it reached over 700,000 people. Additionally, there were 130,000 physical engagements with the live elements of the programme. This included a public art programme in libraries, streets and public spaces across the borough. More than 200 young people were involved in development, employment, and leadership opportunities throughout the year.
• The 13th Fourth Plinth commission, THE END, by Heather Phillipson was unveiled on Trafalgar Square in July 2020. It’s the first fully accessible commission, with a braille panel on the plaque, a tactile image of the work, and an audio description on our website. The unveiling exceeded expectations with a media reach of 324m people. 
• Five more bridges were lit for phase two of the Illuminated River artwork, a light installation by artist Leo Villareal across the River Thames. The artwork now extends across nine thames bridges, from London Bridge to Lambeth Bridge. It is to form the longest public art commission in the world. Over a billion people will see the work for free over its lifespan. The installation celebrates the important role of the Thames bridges in connecting communities on the north and south sides of the river. It uses LED technology which will reduce energy consumption and light pollution.
• In April 2020, the Mayor announced a £2.3m Culture at Risk Emergency Business Fund to support organisations at risk due to the pandemic’s impact Over 130 grants were awarded, and a further 240 organisations supported with specialist guidance. In March 2021, a further £196k from the Community Spaces at Risk Fund was awarded to 23 grassroots organisations. This has helped them safeguard spaces for the communities they serve.
• During the pandemic, London’s first Creative Enterprise Zones have been delivering support for creative SMEs and freelancers. CEZs targeted direct support to local business networks. This includes programmes of rent and business rates relief, direct grants, dedicated funding for freelancers and guidance on how to adapt business models. This helped to sustain businesses and began to stimulate recovery, including:
  • leveraging almost £2.2m funding support
  • supporting 1,000 jobs
  • helping sustain over 360 creative businesses.

Despite the impact of Covid-19, the Mayor’s first six Creative Enterprise Zones are on course to deliver 40,000 square metres of affordable creative workspace. They will also provide 1,000 training opportunities to increase the diversity of the creative workforce.

There is huge appetite from other local authorities to establish their own Creative Enterprise Zones to drive recovery. To meet this demand, we have delivered an Accreditation Pilot with the London Borough of Waltham Forest as a way of designating new zones.  An announcement on the accreditation model will follow in June.  

24 Hour London

• The Night Czar ran a total of 23 virtual night surgeries, night time borough champions meetings and roundtable events. These provided advice to night time businesses, workers and local authorities. The events also helped businesses access funding, get support through the London Business Hub and the Mayor’s Pay It Forward and Culture At Risk schemes. In addition, it offered a chance to speak directly to public health experts, police, regulatory bodies and transport providers as they prepared for safe reopening.
• The Night Czar chaired a multi-agency High Street Reopening Task and Finish Group to coordinate the reopening of high streets following each lockdown. They ensured a fast and consistent London-wide approach to supporting businesses and local authorities and implementing Covid-19 business regulations.
• £675k of support for night time venues was provided through the Mayor’s Culture at Risk Business Support Fund. Over 250 clubs, music and LGBTQ+ venues were supported with business advice and grant funding. The resilience of London’s LGBTQ+ venues was increased by setting up a new, independent LGBTQ+ Venues Forum, operated by the Safer Business Network.
• The Mayor’s Night Time Enterprise Zone pilot in Walthamstow boosted evening footfall by 22 per cent. High street businesses, local artists and people supported extending opening hours to boost struggling businesses and create a safer, more welcoming high street at night.
• Night Time Strategy Guidance has been published to help London’s local authorities with step-by-step advice and case studies from around the globe. Night Time Strategies will help boost London’s high streets and neighbourhoods between 6pm and 6am and recover from the pandemic.
• A new Night Time Data Observatory is helping local authorities to create an evidence base for their Night Time Strategies and high street recovery plans. The observatory provides a wide range of data about the vibrancy, vitality and safety of London at night.
• Some 400 night time venues, employers, transport providers and local authorities signed up to the Mayor’s Women’s Night Safety Charter. The Charter requires organisations to commit to seven pledges, including nominating a named Women’s Night Safety Champion.

• City Hall police funding continued to increase in 2020, reaching record levels as the government finally began reversing years of police funding cuts. Thanks to this funding, Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) officer numbers increased, exceeding 32,000 by the end of the year.
• Prior to the pandemic, efforts to tackle violence were beginning to show results:
  • by February 2020, homicide was down 2 per cent compared to its peak in the 12 months to April 2018
  • murder was down 5 per cent on the peak
  • under 25s knife crime with injury was down 25 per cent compared to its peak in the 12 months to December 2017
  • total knife crime resulting in injury was 21 per cent lower than the peak recorded in 12 months to November 2017
  • gun crime was 26 per cent down compared to the peak recorded in the 12 months to July 2017
  • lethal barrelled gun discharges were 36 per cent lower than the peak recorded in the 12 months to December 2018
• The Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdowns drove crime down further. Looking at the Mayoral term from May 2016 to December 2020:
  • knife crime with injury was down 16 per cent
  • knife crime with injury affecting under-25s was down 27 per cent
  • youth violence was down 11 per cent
  • gun crime was down 15 per cent.

• While these reductions are encouraging, one violent incident is one too many. MOPAC continues to work with the MPS and partners to put plans in place across London to tackle violence over the summer period as lockdown eases.

• Efforts continued during the pandemic to tackle violent crime and get dangerous individuals and weapons off the streets. In May 2020 the MPS launched new Violence Suppression Units (VSUs) to tackle street violence at a local level. Since launching, VSUs have taken 1,142 weapons off the streets, seized £1.5m in proceeds of crime and made 6,031 arrests for violent offences.

• The Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) continued with its ambitious agenda. Its review found that, as well as the horrific human toll, violence in London cost the city £3bn each year. In some parts of London, violence is often concentrated in small areas, like an estate, a cluster of streets, or a main road. The new £6m MyEnds programme launched in February 2021 and led by the VRU will give communities the backing they need to develop their own initiatives to bring about change in their neighbourhoods. In addition it will provide positive opportunities for young people living in the area.
• The VRU launched a new £2.3m package to deliver dedicated one-to-one mentoring support for young Londoners with complex needs in Pupil Referral Units (PRUs). Funding for the new mentoring scheme is available in all 32 London boroughs. A further £1m was invested in a leadership programme for the capital’s frontline youth workers and expanding a scheme for coaches working with young people in custody.
• Young adults have a particularly high risk of reoffending. In March 2021, a new Transitions Hub was announced by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) in partnership with the Ministry of Justice. The first of its kind, the aim is to tackle the underlying issues that increase the risk of reoffending. At the hub, mental health and substance misuse experts will work alongside National Probation Service staff. This is part of an innovative new approach ensuring vulnerable young adults, many of whom had troubled upbringings and poor education, get the best support they need to avoid a life of crime. Offenders released without a home or a job are far more likely to reoffend. To help them, accommodation, training and employment services will also operate from the hub.
• While the series of lockdowns arising from the pandemic saw many crime types reduce, domestic abuse increased. There was an urgent need to provide safe places for victims to seek refuge during the pandemic. That’s why MOPAC moved quickly to work with statutory partners and the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) sector to provide emergency accommodation for victims and their families. This accommodation – mobilised in weeks – provided refuge and wrap-around support services to more than 200 victims and families over the course of the year.
• Work has continued to tackle the perpetrators of VAWG and improve support for victims. In March 2021, MOPAC launched a new GPS tagging pilot for domestic abuse offenders. The pilot will run for a year in every London borough. It will help probation services and the police keep a better check on offenders and ensure they are observing the conditions of their release. Likewise, it will enable them to take swift action if the offenders in question breach these conditions or commit a criminal offence.
• March 2021 also saw £3m in MOPAC funding announced for 42 small grassroots organisations. This will enable them to deliver support for women and girls who have been the victims of violence in the capital. The new investment will fund helplines, enable victims to access legal support, offer access to counselling, and provide vulnerable victims with phones, travel cards and vital food and medical supplies. Such specialist and small organisations are often the first and sometimes only support for victims of violence against women and girls from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.
• There is strong evidence of links between domestic violence and other forms of serious violent crime. In response, the VRU invested a further £1m to expand IRIS. This project trains doctors and healthcare professionals to boost their abilities to identify the signs of domestic violence and provide earlier help to victims.
• In March 2020, a new grassroots campaign - FGM Stops Here – was launched. The campaign was developed in close partnership with an expert advisory board of survivors, frontline professionals and activists. It highlights the stories of four London women with different experiences of female genital mutilation (FGM). By amplifying their voices, the campaign aims to challenge the attitudes around this harmful practice within affected communities in London. Since launch, it has exceeded its targets for engagement and reach, and been well received in communities.
• The murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis in May 2020 shocked the world. It also highlighted how much more must be done to improve trust and confidence among the Black community in our public institutions. This has provided a renewed impetus for change. A series of consultations followed with more than 400 individuals and groups that either work with or within Black communities, after which the Mayor published a new Action Plan for Transparency, Accountability and Trust in Policing in November 2020. The plan recognises the progress made by the MPS since the Macpherson Inquiry more than 20 years ago. It is more transparent and more accountable than at any time in its history. It is also more representative of London with more than 5,000 Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic officers. That’s up from just over 3,000 a decade ago. But equally it acknowledges that more needs to be done - Black Londoners have less confidence and less trust in the MPS than white Londoners. In addition, there remains a persistent disproportionality in the way certain police powers affect Black Londoners. The plan sets out a wide range of actions, including: an overhaul of community scrutiny of police tactics such as stop and search, use of force and Taser; £1.7m investment to boost community involvement in police officer training and accelerate the recruitment of Black officers in the MPS; and stricter oversight and scrutiny of the ‘smell of cannabis’ used as sole grounds for stop and search.
• In March 2021, the Mayor launched a new Youth Justice Action Plan. This is a response to the overrepresentation of children from BAME backgrounds in London’s youth justice service. The plan highlights that the proportion of minority ethnic children in Young Offender Institutions across England and Wales climbed to 51 per cent in 2019, up from 25 per cent in 2009. The Youth Justice Action Plan sets out actions covering the full spectrum of a young person’s interaction with the youth justice system, backed with new £700,000 of City Hall funding to develop fresh, ambitious responses to disproportionality.
• Building on the work of the Countering Violent Extremism Programme, the Shared Endeavour Fund was launched in early 2020. The fund is backed with £400,000 investment from City Hall, match funded by Google.org, and run in partnership with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). The fund invests in local communities and grassroots groups following evidence showing they are best placed to counter hate, intolerance and extremism.
• In March 2021 MOPAC launched the free to download iREPORTit app. This was funded by £40,000 of City Hall investment and created in partnership with the national Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit. It will enable Londoners and people across the country to report terrorist content online quickly, easily and anonymously to the police using their smartphone.

• In 2021-22, the Mayor is providing £16.8m of funding to London Fire Brigade (LFB) above the allocation for fire and rescue services in the capital set out by the government in the local government finance settlement. The Mayor has ensured that firefighters have the right resources to keep Londoners safe, such as training in new procedures, new fire-escape smoke hoods and three new 64-metre ladders.
• Appliance response times remain well within the Brigade’s London-wide standard of six minutes for first, and eight minutes for second. LFB averaged a first-appliance response time of five minutes and five seconds, and second-appliance response time of six minutes and 15 seconds for the year to date.
• During the Covid-19 pandemic the brigade continued to deliver a high number of building audits and take enforcement action. In 2020, almost 9,000 audits were carried out. Around 20 per cent of audits led to some form of enforcement action.
• LFB began a review into its workplace culture, which is a vital part of the brigade’s work to improve diversity and inclusion across the organisation.
• Meanwhile, LFB continues to deliver its transformation programme following Phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry (GTI) and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services’ inspections. LFB’s response to the GTI recommendations is now at an advanced stage, with 17 of 29 recommendations completed as of May 2021. This includes modified procedures and training on gathering building-risk information, providing fire survival guidance, and undertaking emergency evacuations. In addition it includes equipment upgrades like smoke hoods and Command Unit software.
• The pandemic has resulted in an inevitable slow-down in rolling out the London Resilience Strategy, but work continues, albeit within an adjusted time frame. Among other things, we published a report on meanwhile use activities in London (December 2020). We also commissioned research on food security and resilience in London.

• Tackling London’s dangerously polluted air remains a top priority for the Mayor. We are continuing to deliver a bold programme of policies to help clean up toxic air by:
  • introducing tougher standards for heavy vehicles operating in the London-wide Low Emission Zone) in March 2021, with data showing 90 per cent compliance with the new standards at launch
  • launching Breathe London, a community-focused air-quality monitoring network making it easier for all Londoners to access reliable, localised, air-quality data
  • reaching our target of an Ultra Low Emission Zone-compliant core bus fleet (about 9,000 buses), which has contributed to cutting bus-related NOx emissions by 90 per cent
  • installing more than 300 rapid charge points with TfL, with London now having over 7,000 charge points (30 per cent of the UK’s total)
  • overseeing a further 533 Zero Emission Capable taxis added to London’s road, bringing the total to over 4,000.
• We are building on London’s legacy as the world’s first ‘National Park City’ through a mass tree-planting programme. A further 70,000 trees were planted with the Mayor’s funding during 2020-21. This includes over 3,000 street trees and 60,000 trees at two new accessible woodlands in the Green Belt.
• The Mayor also funded the transformation of six large-scale capital projects, which were completed in 2020-21. This includes restoring the Turkey Brook at Albany Park in Enfield to create a new wildlife habitat and reduce flood risk. Some 34 community green space projects were funded through the new Grow Back Greener Fund, building on the 180 projects already supported since 2016. About 80 per cent of projects were in areas with poor access to open space, responding to the needs highlighted by the pandemic.
• The Mayor has declared a climate emergency. We have no time to waste, and the Mayor has brought forward his target for London to be carbon neutral from 2050 to 2030. Through the Mayor’s green new deal, he is taking action with London Councils to double the size of London’s low carbon and environment goods and services sector by 2030. By accelerating the level of climate action, the green new deal will create new job opportunities and skills and boost London’s economy.
• Delivery against the Mayor’s declaration of a climate emergency included:
  • launching the first £10m of Green New Deal funding to support seven projects that will tackle environmental issues, while supporting up to 1,000 jobs and reducing inequalities
  • applying zero-carbon standards to all major domestic and non-domestic developments. This will achieve an estimated 41 per cent higher carbon savings than required by national building regulations. The Mayor’s London Plan has secured £90 million in carbon offset payments from development to support London boroughs to take action on climate
  • continuing the work with London Pensions Fund Authority to bring down their investments in fossil fuel extraction to just 0.05 per cent of assets under management
  • The Mayor’s Energy Efficiency Fund has mobilised over £250 million of public and private capital enabling projects including heat networks and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
• Making London’s buildings energy efficient is a vital part of tackling the climate emergency and has the potential to deliver new jobs as part of the green new deal. During 2020 and 2021 the Mayor has helped secure over £184m from government to support the retrofit of homes and public buildings. This will help deliver a net zero London while also tackling London’s shocking numbers of fuel poor homes. In addition, the Mayor’s Energy for Londoners programme has supported:
  • energy efficiency improvements to over 45 public sector buildings (including 22 schools) and over 260 London homes
  • over 4,400 fuel poor households, as part of the Mayor’s Warmer Homes Advice Services
  • over 357 homes to install high quality, competitively priced solar PV panels
  • 38 community energy projects, including 20 schools, as well as churches, children’s centres, and other local community buildings
  • the Mayor’s energy company, London Power, was supplying fairer, greener, more affordable energy to 5,521 London homes by 31 March 2021.
• The Mayor has secured funding to create a Retrofit Centre of Excellence to help accelerate energy efficiency projects for social housing across England. Backed by £3.45m from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the initiative will provide technical support and guidance for social housing providers looking to retrofit their aging and energy inefficient homes. This will support organisations to secure green finance and help build the supply chain and business case to accelerate the retrofit revolution for private homes. The Mayor’s Innovation Partnership is connecting social landlords and UK building firms so they can coordinate to build a retrofit pipeline, driving down costs of delivering deep retrofitting (going beyond just insulation combining the most appropriate energy measures for homes such as insulation, smart controls, renewable heating and power. It is estimated that at least 100,000-190,000 social homes could be retrofitted through this innovative partnership – a £10 billion opportunity across the UK, with a minimum of £5 billion being delivered in London that would create around 150,000 jobs over the decade.
• The Mayor, in collaboration with Bloomberg Associates, has developed a Climate Risk Map for London. This will ensure the most vulnerable are better prepared for and adapt to the impacts of climate change It will also help identify areas of London that are most exposed to climate impacts with high concentrations of vulnerable populations. The map was accompanied by sustainable drainage guidance for six sectors and pioneering guidance on tackling heating in schools and care homes. In addition, it offered information on cool spaces with advice for Londoners on how to take respite on hot days.
• To make London become a zero-waste city, the Mayor approved all 33 borough Reduction and Recycling Plans. If rolled out in full, these are expected to increase London’s household waste-recycling rate from 33 per cent today to 40 per cent by 2022. He also introduced a world-first Circular Economy policy within the new London Plan. This requires all large-scale developments to incorporate a Circular Economy Statement in their planning submission. This must demonstrate how they will reduce material demands, and increase reuse and recycling of building materials. The Mayor remains committed to cutting single-use plastic waste in London. The Mayor has already provided support to date, to create a network of refillable locations and drinking-water fountains across London. In addition, in September 2020 the Mayor convened a roundtable with boroughs, TfL and other London stakeholders. The aim was to discuss the problems arising from mismanaging disposable PPE, and masks particularly. The roundtable led to a public awareness campaign that has already reached over 1.6m Londoners.

• It’s been a challenging year for the housing sector. Despite this, the Mayor’s affordable homes programmes supported 13,318 affordable housing starts and 9,051 completions across London during 2020-21.Reference:2 The new £4bn Affordable Homes Programme 2021-26 was launched in November 2020.
• Over 3,000Reference:3 affordable homes have also been started by councils in London. The aim is to enable London boroughs to start at least 10,000 new council and Right to Buy replacement homes by March 2023.
• 0ver £95m from our Land Funds was committed in 2020-21 for a range of investments including land purchase, equity investment and senior development finance. This included additional investment into Barking Riverside Limited (BRL) to continue the acceleration of the 10,800-home scheme. Through the funds, a total of £276m has now been committed since the first quarter of 2019-20. This will enable about 10,000 homes (excluding BRL homes) to be built, providing much-needed market and affordable homes for Londoners.
• Over £37m in cladding remediation funding was paid out in 2020-21, across the Social and Private Sector ACM Cladding Remediation Funds and Building Safety Fund. This will improve the safety of Londoners living in 63 high-rise buildings in London. The Waking Watch Relief Fund also opened for applications in London. This programme will ensure that Londoners living in buildings that have not yet been remediated do not have to continue paying for a waking watch.
• Through his Covid-19 rough-sleeping response, the Mayor safely accommodated over 2,400 people in hotels and other emergency accommodation to 31 March 2021. All were supported by the Mayor’s charity partners, who helped over 1,000 people to positively move on. The Mayor’s Life off the Streets services helped 89 per cent (3,218) of the 3,633 rough sleepers they engaged to move into longer term accommodation. Furthermore, with funding secured from the government, the Mayor’s Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme allocated funding to providers. This enabled them to deliver around 900 longer term homes for rough sleepers in the capital.
• During the pandemic, huge efforts were made to bring rough sleepers off the streets and into emergency hotels. This created an opportunity to offer healthcare support to a large group of people who often face barriers to accessing GPs and other health services. Over 1,000 people were tested for blood-borne viruses, with those testing positive for HIV and hepatitis C supported and engaged in treatment.
• The Mayor’s Rogue Landlord and Agent Checker, has information about private landlords and letting agents who’ve been prosecuted or fined. It was viewed 59,000 times during 2020/21. In November 2020, the Mayor launched his new Property Licence Checker for renters. Viewed over 50,000 times since its launch, it helps them find out if their home needs a license and check with their borough whether it has one. These checkers empower renters, support local councils and others to use their enforcement powers. They also deter private landlords and letting agents from behaving unlawfully.
• In July 2020, the £13m Royal Docks Good Growth Fund was launched. It supports projects in the Royal Docks that contribute to London’s inclusive economic growth as well as to the local community wealth-building agenda. The first award was made in March 2021, with £2.8m awarded for a social enterprise. This will transform 100,000 square feet of derelict space into an affordable creative workspace and community hub.

• On 2 March 2021 the Mayor published the new London Plan, which sets out the Spatial Development Strategy for the Greater London area. It provides a framework for how London will develop over the next 20-25 years, as well as the Mayor’s vision for Good Growth. The plan ensures that the planning system for London operates in a joined-up way. It reflects the overall strategy for how London can develop sustainably, providing jobs and homes for current and future Londoners. This is the most ambitious policy document ever adopted in the planning system. It aims to create a new standard for how planning can influence the future of the city.
• In November 2020, the GLA launched the new Planning London DataHub. This is a live, open dataset about development proposals – with the release of the data starting in March 2021. Unlike previous versions, the DataHub includes data fed from boroughs and applicants. This enables a live picture of how the city is changing, how planning policies are impacting that change, and how that is making a difference to the environments we live in. This, in turn, will help decision-makers understand quickly the impact of choices being made. It will also enable the market to innovate to build new tools to help Londoners understand, and become more involved in, planning and shaping their communities.
• Despite challenging conditions, the GLA’s planning team did a good job of supporting development:
  • 70 per cent of stage-one planning application referrals were responded to within the required deadline
  • 99 per cent of stage-two planning application referrals were responded to within the required deadline
  • 76 per cent of pre-applications were responded to in time.

The Mayor has established two development corporations to oversee the regeneration of two specific areas of London.

Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC)

• A total of 6,000 new homes were given the green light, 38 per cent of which are affordable, with over 2,000 under construction and 2,000 already completed.
• OPDC launched, with partners, an Employment & Skills Hub – The Forge – which is bringing together local business and local job seekers. Already, 70 vacancies have been filled at Cargiant and High Speed 2.
• Plans were developed to improve public spaces around Willesden Junction, to revitalise local green space, and to improve access to and along the Grand Union Canal. These improvements will start in 2021-22, making impactful changes for local people.
• OPDC also supported local communities and residents through the Covid-19 pandemic. It provided grants totalling £180,000 to its local boroughs to support food provision to those most in need, ran a community support service directing local groups to funding and worked with the Mayor’s Growth Hub to support local businesses.
• Good progress was made in laying the foundations of its Western Lands regeneration strategy. OPDC has put forward modifications to the draft Local Plan submitted to the Inspector and out for consultation, and worked closely with local boroughs and government – especially Homes England – on a business case. This means we’re now well placed to make the case for deals for funding and land. This will allow OPDC to release the potential of this area, which can accommodate over 13,000 new homes by 2033. It will also catalyse the development of further homes on privately led sites elsewhere across Old Oak and Park Royal.

London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC)

• At East Bank, the new culture and education district providing new venues for the V&A, Sadler’s Wells, BBC, UAL’s London College of Fashion and UCL, construction continued after a short closure despite difficulties caused by constrained sites.
• LLDC has also begun a major project with Network Rail, TfL and LB Newham. The aim is to improve Stratford Regional Station and develop plans for the wider regeneration of Stratford town centre.
• Building vital homes carried on in the park despite the lockdown. The last piles were driven in on the fourth and final phase of the Chobham Manor neighbourhood. Properties on the first phase of the East Wick development went up for sale and rent. Revised zonal masterplans were also submitted for the remaining phases of East Wick and the next neighbourhood at Sweetwater.
• Procurement launched in autumn 2020 for a joint venture partner for the Bridgewater Triangle and Stratford Waterfront residential developments. These will deliver 600 homes on each site. LLDC’s board agreed the Housing Delivery Plan. This complements other policy documents ensuring high standards of design, construction and public realm across the park.
• Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has proved to be a lifeline for local people, especially those without their own gardens or outside space during the pandemic. Some 70 per cent of local users thought the park’s open space had a positive impact on their physical and mental health.
• In February, East Careers Week gave more than 700 local young people aged 15 to 17 the chance to explore career options. This included LLDC’s free, week-long talks, webinars and workshops.
• Work continued on other projects, like the Good Growth Hub. This is working with local boroughs and businesses in the creative, cultural and fashion sectors. The aim is to give local young people the chance to take part in a wide-ranging programme. For example, internships that pay London living wage, skills boot camps, a freelance academy and much more. This will open doors into sectors that have long been out of reach.
• Venues may have been closed to the public, but events were still held behind closed doors. Examples include Premier League football matches, Olympic swimming qualifiers and Vitality Netball Superleague matches. The lack of spectators enabled cost-saving initiatives to be completed. At London Stadium, new seating systems for the north and south stands will save £1m a year in running costs. New LED floodlighting systems were installed as well as a new entertainment deck, a cashless payment system and 5G wi-fi.
• At the London Aquatics Centre, a new gym has been opened while the London Marathon Community Track pitch was completely renovated.

• Team London continued to deliver a wide range of accessible and attractive volunteering opportunities to a broad sweep of Londoners. Despite the impact of Covid-19, over 20,000 volunteering opportunities were still delivered through GLA programmes. This includes supporting London through volunteers placed at the Nightingale Hospital and at Tube stations to hand out face coverings.
• Sport Unites aims to harness the power of sport and physical activity to bring people from diverse backgrounds together. The aim is to strengthen our communities whilst improving Londoners’ physical health and mental wellbeing. During the past year, the programme reached more than 56,000 participants. Many projects used digital delivery. For example, by adapting a project to counter loneliness during lockdown and work. This was used to help the sector recover in preparation for the next phase of Sport Unites.
• We provided support to London-wide networks of volunteers through our civil society support work. This included researching the experience of mutual aid groups in London and hosting a volunteering summit. The aim was to consider learnings from the pandemic and how best to approach the new recovery missions. In particular, the missions focusing on Building Stronger Communities and the New Deal for Young People. We also set up the London Community Response collaborative fund, on the Mayor’s behalf, working with London Funders, City Bridge Trust and the Corporation.
• Young London Inspired encourages vulnerable young Londoners to volunteer or take part in social action. The aim is to develop their skills and careers; and improve their life chances, wellbeing, and ability to actively participate in their communities. Since 2018, over 1,000 young people have been engaged in volunteering and social action activity. Sixty-three per cent are new to social action and 71 per cent reporting improved wellbeing. Over 200 volunteers were recruited during the last year through the programme.
• Team London Young Ambassadors connects young people with their communities through school-based social action. The programme enabled 4,900 young people to support causes in their local area through the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020/21, the programme entered a new phase supporting young people in alternative provision, Pupil Referral Units, and SEND schools. The aim is to unlock their potential and contribute to changing their communities.
• Team London also uses volunteering to improve skills and employability. HeadStart Action engages young people aged 14-19 through social action to access employability training and work experience. Since 2018, HeadStart Action has supported over 600 young people across London. It has had a 100 per cent success rate with all young people completing the pilot remained in education one year after finishing it.
• The London Enterprise Adviser Network (LEAN) matches experienced business volunteers with school and college careers leaders. The aim is to work in partnership to improve careers provision and boost business engagement. The LEAN now works with over 550 schools and colleges in London, and 600 business volunteers from a variety of sectors and industries.

Health

• During the pandemic, the Mayor has worked closely with PHE, NHS London Regional Directors and other partners to seek assurances and coordinate work across key issues. Further details are in the ‘Responding to the Pandemic’ introductory section.
• The London Recovery Board has announced two health recovery missions focusing on mental health and obesity. Improving health and reducing health inequalities are also key objectives across the entire recovery programme.
• The Mayor has ensured that supporting the mental health of Londoners has remained a priority. His Youth Mental Health First Aid Programme has now trained over 2,400 education staff and peer mentors in London schools and youth settings. He has invested in Good Thinking, London’s digital mental health and wellbeing resource, to expand content to support our children and young people. He also recorded a message for London’s virtual World Mental Health Day event in October 2020, reflecting on the impacts of the pandemic.
• The Mayor has continued to work in partnership with Alzheimer’s Society on Dementia Friendly London. This is a commitment to make London the world’s first dementia-friendly capital city. The Health and Peer Outreach Teams have trained 116 GLA staff members as Dementia Friends, bringing the total to over 500 staff.
• The Health Team has delivered a refreshed water-only schools toolkit, which includes Covid-19-safe guidance. This toolkit is now available to schools via the Healthy Schools London website. The toolkit forms part of the continuing development and implementation of the Child Obesity Taskforce’s action plan.
• Fast Track Cities London, of which the Mayor is a signatory, launched 12 projects to improve the lives of some of the most vulnerable people with HIV. Projects are led by 22 local charities partnering with nine NHS Trusts to form a community of practice. The projects received training and coaching to help them adapt to new ways of working and delivering services during the pandemic.
• Over the past year a further 88 organisations have signed up to the Healthy Workplace London Award in London. This represents 40,000 employees across these organisations. And 43 more schools have registered with the Healthy Schools London programme. This brings the total number of schools to 2,221, which represents 87 per cent of all London schools.

Education and youth

• Despite the challenges posed by Covid-19, the Mayor’s Young Londoners Fund exceeded its youth engagement target for the year. It has now supported over 88,000 young Londoners since its launch in 2018 – funding a range of local projects and helping young people across the city to fulfil their potential.
• In July 2020, the Mayor announced a further £2.1m funding for youth activities, through wave 3 of the London Community Response. This investment will provide positive activities to a further 15,000 young Londoners, focusing on boosting skills, improving mental health and steering them away from violence.
• The Mayor’s Early Years Hubs and Early Years Leaders programmes have supported over 500 early-years providers since their launch in 2018. This has helped to improve both the quality and take-up of early education across London, including recently through the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.
• The Mayor’s London Scientist programme aims to engage more disadvantaged pupils and girls in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects. It hit a key milestone in March 2021 with some 10,000 pupils in London schools having now completed a CREST Award. This is the UK’s top STEM award scheme.
• In its fifth year, the Getting Ahead London programme welcomed a cohort of 73 new London teachers. The aim is to support them to take their next steps into senior leadership or headship. This included coaching and mentoring on addressing Covid-19 learning loss and related challenges.
• We were proud to partner with The Black Curriculum last year to review and refresh our London Curriculum history resources. It is vital that these resources reflect and celebrate London’s rich diversity. This will help give teachers the knowledge, tools and confidence to teach Black history – not just during Black History Month, but throughout the year.
• Our London Learning at Home platform was launched in spring 2020, as a response to the closure of schools for most pupils. It has gone from strength to strength, with over 24,000 page views to date. It brings together over 100 free learning and cultural offers from partners across the city – all accessible for children from home. The ‘Virtually Explore London’ teachers’ guide and webinars helped them to use these resources to inspire children. It also helped keep them connected to our amazing city during the pandemic.

• Our Community Engagement Team coordinated outreach, and organised roundtables with almost 500 community groups to capture insight about the impact of Covid-19. The focus was primarily on groups that have been disproportionally impacted by the pandemic.
• The Community-Led Recovery Programme launched in January 2021. It offers support for grassroots community organisations across London to engage in the recovery process by sharing their lived experience and collaborating with decision-makers. It aims to support communities most affected by Covid-19 and those who experience barriers to participation.
• We awarded grants to 20 community-led partnerships along with access to a Civil Society Roots incubator programme. This will offer the partnerships development support – testing new ways of working and growing the organisation’s resilience and sustainability. All the partnerships are led by and for communities who have been disproportionately impacted by Covid-19 and want to raise the voices of Londoners, increase feelings of belonging, or increase access to support and services for these groups.
• In January 2021, construction and infrastructure businesses including UK Power Networks, Balfour Beatty, and Thames Water signed up to our first Workforce Integration Network (WIN) Design Lab programme. This helps them to tackle the under-representation of young (aged 16-24) Black men in these sectors. Collectively these businesses represent over 20,000 jobs. In partnership with the Black Training and Enterprise Group, WIN launched the Inclusive Employers’ Toolkit. This gives businesses practical steps to increase the diversity of their workforce and improve workplace culture and policy.
• Further guidance was added to the European Londoners Hub, including in 28 community languages. The hub is now considered a trusted source of information for EU citizens and their family members in London and has attracted over 1.5m unique page views. We also awarded £180,000 to 34 civil society and grassroots organisation grantees to support vulnerable European Londoners who are hard to reach online. So far, grantees have reached 5,141 people with one-to-one advice and support on the EU Settlement Scheme.
• We invested more than £1m to boost the capacity of the immigration advice sector, including:
  • projects to support migrant Londoners sleeping rough
  • training and capacity-building to support local authorities in identifying and addressing the residency and citizenship rights of non-UK-national children and young people in their care
  • funding to increase access to justice on immigration issues within the UK.
• We want to build relationships between Londoners and help reduce the rise of loneliness and social isolation caused by the pandemic. To help, £1.4m of the £10m we contributed to the London Community Response Fund went to organisations working to reduce isolation and promote good mental health and wellbeing.
• We published a toolkit to support civil society organisations in taking stock of how they responded to the pandemic. This will help embed new ways of working, and continue to build relationships between Londoners from different backgrounds.
• The Mayor’s Employment Rights portal has generated over 91,000 unique page views as part of his promise to make London a fairer city to work in. The portal provides information about different employment rights. It also includes information on issues ranging from how to deal with a problem at work to employment status.
• There were growing concerns about debt in the second wave of the pandemic. In response, we funded Toynbee Hall. This enables their debt advice helpline, run by the Debt-Free London partnership, to continue operating 24/7 until the end of March 2021.
• The Mayor worked with the SCG and a range of partners to coordinate the emergency food response to Covid-19. This included:
  • establishing 53 community food hubs across London to distribute food to Londoners experiencing food insecurity
  • providing emergency funding to Kitchen Social to distribute food to children
  • supporting hundreds of voluntary and community sector organisations working to address food insecurity through the London Community Response Fund.
• The GLA Group continues in its efforts to have a diverse workforce reflective of London’s communities. Workforce data for each of the GLA group bodies can be found on their websites. In the GLA, as of 31 March 2021, among the total workforce:
  • 61 per cent were female
  • 45 per cent of staff in senior leadership positions were female
  • 29 per cent were from Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) groups
  • 11 per cent of staff in senior leadership positions were from BAME groups
  • 6 per cent of the total workforce were staff with disabilities
  • 11 per cent of staff within senior leadership positions were staff with disabilities.
• The GLA Group has successfully delivered Cohort 2 of Our Time to participants. This is a positive action programme that pairs highly talented women with champions at a senior management level, either female or male. The aim is to open up professional networks, opportunities and contacts often needed to progress to leadership positions within workplaces. 50 participants across GLA Group organisations took part in the scheme over 2020-21.

Transport

• Transport for London (TfL) runs one of the largest and most complex transport networks anywhere in the world, with around 9,000 buses and over 270 Tube stations. Before the pandemic, the financial improvements achieved by the Mayor made TfL one of the most self-sufficient transport authorities in the world. TfL is one of the few major global transport authorities operating without a government grant for day-to-day operations. TfL’s operating deficit had reduced by 71 per cent and cash balances increased by 13 per cent. In 2020, the loss of ridership due to the pandemic had a devastating impact on TfL’s finances. TfL required funding support from government to keep the public transport network running and create space for safe walking and cycling in response to the pandemic.
• Throughout the pandemic, TfL has kept services running safely. TfL fully supported nationwide ‘stay at home’ messages during the lockdowns. As a result, demand reduced by over 90 per cent on the Tube and around 85 per cent on buses in the first lockdown (March 2020). Some of the measures rolled out to support the government’s efforts to stop the spread of Covid-19 and mitigate the financial impacts of lockdown included:
  • enhanced cleaning and use of hospital grade antiviral cleaning fluid and ultraviolet light sanitiser to kill viruses and bacteria across TfL’s network services
  • enforcement of the mandatory wearing of face coverings on all public transport modes
  • active management of passenger demand across the network and promotion of travel during quiet times. This ensured that those who needed to travel could continue to do so safely
  • rent reliefs, including the grant of a three-month rent holiday during the initial phase of lockdown, to all small and medium-sized enterprises across the commercial property estate (representing 86 per cent of TfL’s tenants). This enabled them to continue trading.
• The Mayor exceeded his 2016 manifesto commitment to freeze TfL fares for four years. In 2020/21, he also protected all current concessions. This includes free travel for young people under 18 and the 60+ Oyster Card, successfully fighting off the government’s proposal to scrap these concessions. There are currently around 370,000 holders of the 60+ Oyster car in London. In addition, TfL estimates that 480,000 children between the ages of 11-15 and 215,000 young people between the ages of 16-17 hold Zip Oyster cards. The Mayor’s support means they can still get to work or school, or see family without adding to their financial hardship.
• The Mayor continued the Bus Hopper fare, introduced in 2016. This allows unlimited journeys on the bus or tram within an hour for only £1.50 (this increased to £1.55 in March 2021). In 2018, the Hopper was upgraded to allow passengers to travel on Tube or rail services in between their bus or tram journeys. This was not possible before and has helped more people save even more money. The Bus Hopper has also cut the cost of travel for some of the poorest Londoners. Lower income Londoners are more likely to use the bus. Nearly three-quarters of people in the lowest household income bracket using the bus at least once a week.
• Between 2016 and 2020, the amount of protected cycle space in London tripled, adding 100km of protected space to the previous 50km. Since May 2020, delivery accelerated again in response to the pandemic. Close to 100km of new or upgraded cycle routes was built in less than a year. In 2019, some 11.5 per cent of Londoners lived within 400 metres of the London-wide cycle network (a 31 per cent increase on 2018). By October 2020, this had grown to 18 per cent, a huge 56 per cent rise in just one year. This investment in infrastructure has led to many more people cycling. The growth in cycling in 2018 was the largest increase since records began. During the pandemic, cycling has been the only mode of transport in London where absolute numbers have increased.
• The Mayor is committed to promoting safer, cleaner lorries with new safety standards. On 1 March 2021, enforcement began for the Mayor’s world leading Direct Vision Standard (DVS). This is part of his Vision Zero commitment to eliminate deaths and serious injuries from London’s roads by 2041. DVS tackles road danger at its source by minimising HGV blind spots which contribute to many tragic deaths and life-changing injuries. From 1 March 2021, all lorries over 12 tonnes must have a valid HGV safety permit to enter or operate in Greater London or they will be issued with a penalty charge. Over 132,000 vehicles now meet the DVS.
• London now has the biggest zero-emission bus fleet in Western Europe with over 515 zero-emission buses in service. All buses in TfL’s 9,000-strong core fleet meet or exceed stringent Euro VI emissions standards. Each retrofitted bus emits up to 95 per cent less NOx and 80 per cent less particulate matter than before. This has led to significant air-quality improvements across London. Decarbonising the transport network and cleaning up London’s air also supports green jobs in the bus industry across the United Kingdom. Around £85m has been invested in retrofitting older diesel buses to meet or exceed the Euro VI emissions standards since 2017.

Infrastructure and connectivity

• The Mayor secured £3.5m for a second phase of the Infrastructure Coordination Service (ICS) from 2021-2023. In the pilot, the ICS evidenced the case for improved coordination in planning and delivery of infrastructure works across London, including:
  • delivering six collaborative street works projects that saved over 370 days of disruption, with one project alone generating up to £4.1m in wider societal benefits to Londoners as well as emissions reductions
  • introducing five infrastructure coordinators into local boroughs to streamline infrastructure connections for new development, supporting housing delivery
  • completing innovative studies to prepare for coming growth in the Isle of Dogs, including an Integrated Water Management Strategy.
• Two data tools support infrastructure coordination: the Infrastructure Mapping Application version 4 was completed and is now the key to identifying collaborative street works projects. This includes 50 schemes under consideration currently; and, after the GLA completed the pilot phase of the National Underground Asset Register , bringing together data on London’s pipes and cables, it was awarded another £1.1m by the Cabinet Office for the second phase which is under way now.
• To support London's economic and social recovery, utility companies have partnered with the London Recovery Board to commit £1.99bn of planned infrastructure investment in London. This has already created 1,487 jobs. March 2020 saw the launch of 4G signal underground with a pilot covering half of the Jubilee line going live. Passengers can now make calls, check travel information, catch up on social media, watch a video and read emails or news during their journey.
• The Mayor secured £6m grant funding from government to improve London’s full fibre availability in outer London boroughs. This is added to £11m funding from the GLA’s Strategic Investment Fund and £15.4m from the boroughs’ Strategic Investment Pot. This means a total of £32.4m is being invested into new fibre infrastructure as part of the Mayor’s Connected London programme.