• Question by: James Cleverly
• Meeting date: 15 July 2009

Just a very brief point on the matter you just brought up in the answer to my colleague's question. I think most Londoners will find it difficult, without the advantage of context, to really understand the significance of the point we are making. I just want to use an example of the two boroughs that I represent; Bexley and Bromley. I think most people will not be able to understand why two boroughs who currently have vacant pitches - so there is a surplus of provision - would need so dramatic an increase as could potentially be forced upon us...

• Question by: Richard Barnbrook
• Meeting date: 15 July 2009

Morning, Mayor Boris. There does seem to be a slight contradiction in terms here and I would like to believe that you would agree with me on this. But before I go into this contradiction, my first hand knowledge in Swanley where travellers - both Irish, English and also East European - had actually settled down, with a policy with Sevenoaks Council, to be housed in bricks and mortar which many of them actually wanted to do. But the point here is that, I think, the term traveller means you are constantly on the move. By my own knowledge again...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 15 July 2009

Mr Mayor, I think Mr Shah's approach to this has been perhaps a touch one sided. We have a large Tamil community in Redbridge and they were very much involved with their Member of Parliament, Lee Scott, during this demonstration and Lee [Scott] visited the demonstrators and came back with reports from them about how pleased they were with the sensitive way that the Metropolitan Police Service had handled this demonstration and how in fact it contrasted with some of the more heavy handed behaviour that we had seen with them handling other demonstrations elsewhere in London. Will you congratulate...

• Question by: James Cleverly
• Meeting date: 15 July 2009

It is a ministerial position. Sorry - I defer to my more knowledgeable colleagues. A ministerial position. And also, all across the country, there are Mayors who have permanent drivers and a car. Are there any plans to bring in a Mayoral car and driver under this administration?

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 15 July 2009

Are you not surprised, Mr Mayor, at the area of the room in which these questions have come from - Mr Biggs and, sitting next to him, Mr Duvall. When Mr Biggs, before he left early the Budget Monitoring Subcommittee, sat in that Committee and listened to evidence in a question from myself where I asked whether or not it was the procedures that you had put into place that had exposed this shortfall, we had a reply from Andrew Travers saying, 'I think it is in large part due to the changes and improvements that we have put in...

• Question by: Gareth Bacon MP
• Meeting date: 15 July 2009

Thank you, Mr Mayor. To return to the Thames Gateway Bridge question and one or two points that Mr Biggs just raised: The appropriate safeguards that he referred to were £12 million worth of money for all four boroughs affected by opposite ends of the bridge for transport mitigation measures. To put that into context, the bridge that would have landed at Galleons Reach would have been a six lane road bridge that conveniently would link up the -- well traffic would be able to travel through to the A2 and the A20. Now to do that, on the south...

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 15 July 2009

So what is the environmental difference then in a road crossing via a bridge - tolled or not tolled; maybe you will tell us that or what the thinking is around that - as opposed to a bridge crossing? If the environmental considerations for the bridge crossing are still --, why is it any different?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 15 July 2009

Mayor, I have some concerns from my constituents about the service on the Woolwich Ferry which has been disrupted recently for refurbishment. Can you just update us on what is going on there and assure us that the service will be improved in future?

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 17 June 2009

Again on shared space, I just wanted to make sure that you appreciated there is a huge amount of mythology around shared space. There are of course masses of already shared space streets in London, not least around Covent Garden. I myself live on a shared space street - a mews in Marylebone - and many of them do not have pavements. I just wondered, in looking at shared space, whether you had considered comparing those streets which are already shared and their accident record - particularly in relation to blind and other disabled users - and streets that are...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 17 June 2009

On the shared space issue, it is great to hear you say that. Does that mean you are going to speak to Kensington and Chelsea about their schemes and ask them to just stop until we have had a full examination from all disabled organisations? Secondly, does it mean that you will tell Transport for London (TfL) that they must not fund any schemes that have not been properly vetted?