Allan Jones goes in climate change shake up at London Development Agency

The chief executive of the London Climate Change Agency has been forced to leave his post as part of a major restructure at the London Development Agency (LDA).

Allan Jones was hired by former mayor Ken Livingstone to promote renewable energy generation on development sites, particularly in large-scale regeneration schemes.However, Jones has lost his job as part of a restructuring of the LDA and its climate change function. The restructuring occurred after mayor Boris Johnson sacked the previous LDA chief executive and replaced him with Peter Rogers who was given a mandate to reduce costs.

The London Energy Services Company (Esco) set up by Jones to provide low-carbon power to large schemes has yet to secure a contract after two years.

The situation leaves the future of the climate change agency, which employs 11 staff, in doubt. An LDA spokesperson said the agency accounted for a fifth of its spending on climate change initiatives. Until September Jones was chief executive of the agency and a director of the LDA.

The spokesperson added: 鈥淭he LDA is reviewing how best to achieve genuine carbon reductions. Deciding whether the agency as a separate legal entity is the most effective way to achieve our environmental goals forms part of this review. As part of this restructure, Jones鈥� post as a director at the LDA has been made redundant.鈥�

Jones, who was awarded an MBE following his work setting up a distributed renewable energy network for Woking council, was appointed by Livingstone in 2004. However, the London Climate Change Agency has been criticised for an inflexible approach to achieving carbon savings, and for promoting technologies that are not fully proven.

Anthony Coumidis, a director of consultant McBains Cooper, said: 鈥淛ones was instrumental in Ken鈥檚 insistence on promoting combined heat and power everywhere. The current administration seems to be taking a different approach of allowing the private sector to say how they are going to achieve necessary goals. Before, we couldn鈥檛 even discuss it.鈥�

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