The Mayor's 2015 Christmas message

You can either watch the video or read a transcript of the message below.

Hi folks, Boris Johnson Mayor of London. I thought as we come now to the end of 2015 we would have a look back at what an incredible year it’s been for our city.

The greatest ever rugby world cup, much of it held in London.

London is still the number one city for international visitors; 18.8 million of them came to see our city, more than any other great global city.

And of course, we are trying to deal with the problems that affect all Londoners. Number one being housing, how do we help people into housing; well we’ve built a record number of affordable homes this year.

We are trying to help Londoners on low incomes by lifting the London Living Wage up to £9.14 and obviously we are encouraging more and more firms to take that up and I’m very pleased with the huge expansion we’ve seen just in the last year of firms who are paying that living wage.

And as we come to the end of 2015 it is worth looking forward also to the excitements’ in store in 2016.

And we are going to have not just further progress on Crossrail, one year closer, on time, on budget, the biggest engineering project in Europe, we are going to be extending the Northern line, right down there to Battersea, work begins on that.

Work will begin on the Garden Bridge. They thought it wouldn’t happen, but it will. It’s going to be absolutely beautiful. We start that early next year as well.

And of course, at some stage, I will eventually have to step down and remove myself from this wonderful, wonderful office. But, not yet, because there is an awful lot more still to do.

And we are getting on with it, and in the meantime, can I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a very happy festive season as we say these days.