• Question by: Richard Barnbrook
• Meeting date: 21 May 2008

Boris, you just mentioned about the fact that it should be down to local communities to decide what happens with regards to housing and developments. In the case of my own parliamentary constituency to become, 80% of people I have spoken to over the last four years do not want the building on the flood plains of Rainham Marshes and Dagenham Marshes, next to the Ford site, where the floor foundations 40 foot deep slipped, I think, it is 10 foot in the last 30 years. Nobody wants to insure properties on that so would you consider scrapping the idea...

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 21 May 2008

Nicky Gavron (AM): Can I finally end on another point which is you have said that you want Londoners to live in beautiful homes of the right size and not rabbit hutches. The previous administration was moving towards introducing minimum space standards. When I first began in planning we did not think Parker Morris was good enough. Now we would die to have Parker Morris and... Well I want you to support that and to make sure it is in your revision to the London Plan and you will have to consider whether it is there for all homes not...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 21 May 2008

Darren Johnson (Deputy Chair): Just picking up quickly on the point you were making about green homes and promoting insulation and so on; I am encouraged by those comments but in the previous term we had seen a major investment programme from a measly few hundred thousand pounds back in 2004 to a major multi million pound investment programme by 2008 in green homes in terms of the LDA's budget. Are we going to see that level of investment and that level of growth continue?

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 21 May 2008

Steve O'Connell (AM): Picking up on the work around the London Plan, something that bedevils the quality of life of many people in the outer London boroughs is building on gardens, 'garden grabbing' to use a phrase, and that was an issue coming up very much in the previous months of the election. We very much welcome building in Croydon and Sutton. We very much welcome more affordable housing, appropriate affordable housing in the right places, for our families, affordable for our young families. There is certainly the issue around over-development of back gardens and the ruination of life around...

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 21 May 2008

Can I move on to another point which is a very important component of the Plan which is directly relevant to young people and it is very recent, it has just been put in the Further Alterations; -it is a requirement that all new housing developments in London must provide play and informal recreation space for children and young people, ten square meters per child or teenager, either on site or in the neighbourhood if there is something that can be improved and accessible, and the developers have to maintain that for 15 years.

• Question by: Navin Shah
• Meeting date: 21 May 2008

Navin Shah (AM): Mr Mayor, I am also after a commitment from you. The question relates to the issue about the family size units. Certainly in outer London boroughs there is a glut of small one and two bedroom units. Definitely what every borough aspires to are family size units. Are you committed, and would you put that clearly in the London Plan, that there would be greater emphasis for a larger proportion of family size units and to better than Parker Morris standards?

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 21 May 2008

Len Duvall (AM): Now, can I just return to the issue about affordable housing and the scrapping of the 50%. I understand that you want to beat some of the previous Mayor's affordable housing targets. How are you going to reconcile the issues of affordable housing? What is your approach to it? Are you a champion for it? On those boroughs that resist it, what is your approach?

• Question by: Richard Tracey
• Meeting date: 21 May 2008

Richard Tracey (AM): Mr Mayor, going back to affordable housing, can I ask you to commend the excellent Hidden Homes Scheme in Wandsworth, which of course you visited and looked at. The whole idea is to use redundant space in estates and elsewhere. Would it not be a good idea if you, Mr Mayor, with all your authority, commended this scheme to other London boroughs and elsewhere in the country?

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 21 May 2008

Len Duvall (AM): With Simon Milton, it is not a question of finance; it is a question of advice to a senior politician of another Authority and it is a Conservative Act and it is an Act that is often quoted by the Members opposite. Your twin aims of the Patience Wheatcroft exercise looking for the future, looking at the LDA and the GLA I would take on board. We would want to participate in that in some form or another. It is really about the partisan way: if you have nothing to hide and you are not worried, why...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 21 May 2008

John Biggs (AM): I am very happy to start with the supplementaries because we had a briefing earlier on from the Mayor on his appointments. The first one then is that in your manifesto you announced that you would launch an immediate review of City Hall and its finances within the first 100 days and I believe, but can you confirm, that that was through the creation of the panel headed by Patience Wheatcroft?