Local Environmental Quality in Times of Austerity

In times of austerity, when cuts to local government funding appear almost daily in the news headlines, how do residents of London prioritise public services? And, are these priorities changing in the face of this increasingly challenging financial climate?

This research, co-funded by London Councils and Keep Britain Tidy, explores London residents’ priorities for spend. More specifically, it investigates where local environmental quality (LEQ) and related anti-social behaviour (ASB) issues feature amongst a set of broader public service priorities and asks why this might be.

At the heart of this research project is a desire to understand how these changing priorities impact on the ways in which residents would like authority bodies to go about tackling the issues. Are the general public more or less likely to tolerate the use of fixed penalty notices (fines), for instance? Do they see fines as an acceptable (and successful) route to behaviour change in a ‘cuts’ prevalent political environment?

Putting the residents in charge of their own ‘budgets’, the research explores the degree to which residents see enforcement as an acceptable source of revenue, what residents are willing to contribute towards the issues personally (time, for example) and what other approaches and techniques are most likely to change poor environmental behaviours and encourage people to ‘do the right thing’.

Read the executive summary Opens in a new window, or the full research report Opens in a new window .