• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 17 October 2007

As you say, it is one of the key objectives in your Biodiversity Strategy yet nearly one quarter of the built up areas of London still have no easy access to natural green space. You are not making progress on this sufficiently at all. You are really failing in this area.

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

I love horses and I have owned horses. I have even owned horseboxes and in fact one of my daughters sometimes lives in a horsebox, so I feel I am qualified to comment on this. I just wanted to ask you if you would like my help in supporting you against exemptions of this kind?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

For the record, Chair, I do not like horses although I would not want to begrudge people who do like them their pleasure. I was tempted to make a comment about cows and global warming. However, Peter [Hulme Cross] does raise a relevant question for a small but important number of people around London. On a more general question about exemptions from the Low Emission Zone, I am sure all Members are being lobbied about this and Bob Neill has touched on it as well, whether the not-for-profit sector, particularly community transport fleets, could be exempted because of the prohibitive...

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

Why not consider an exemption at weekends as you do with the Congestion Charge?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

Beyond some of the sniggering and sneering, can I suggest that there is a serious point that is being missed here, Mr Mayor, and perhaps in some cases a bit of a geographic anomaly. You will know that in the southern part of the London Borough of Bromley there is a ward which is so rural in nature that it only returns one councillor and that is an area where I think we have got something in the order of a dozen farms, most of which have horseboxes of one kind or another, and there are a number of riding...

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

Well it is not exactly as though you are talking about a lot of vehicles. What we are talking about is the transportation of horses within the Low Emission Zone, mainly at weekends, by people who attend equestrian events which would fall within the Low Emission Zone. We are talking about a small number of vehicles here, but by disqualifying them from coming into the Low Emission Zone, you are going to have a huge effect on horse riding and equestrian eventing. It is totally disproportionate. For example, Upminster Riding Club has been established for 40 years and they hold...

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

My information is that to upgrade a horsebox would be in the region of about £4,000, which is no inconsiderable sum. In fact one of my correspondents has a horsebox, a 1985 model, which she says could not be upgraded anyway and she would have to buy a new one. The point is that this will have a disproportionate effect on these people if they cannot move their horses, and it will just simply escalate. You will find that equestrian events are not being held, the places will close as a result of it and I think that would be...

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

No, I suspect you have not owned a horse, Mr Mayor. A lot of these horses are actually shared between a number of different people and the cost does not always fall on just one person.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

These questions related to correspondence which I know that you have had from my constituents who live in Malden Rushett, which is the most south-westerly part of London, one of which related to somebody whose farm is split by the LEZ simply because you have not chosen to put the whole of Greater London in it, which is in itself an anomaly. These people have very particular problems; they are the only customers for people from outside, like the knacker for example, and I think that this is quite a serious matter for farmers where the knacker has to come...

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 12 September 2007

Just to correct the figures, it was a combination of three sources of funding; some was Government funding and some was council resources, but also the receipts they received from Dolphin Square, which is obviously a one-off. I just think it is very telling that we have come full circle with council housing where it is more financially viable to buy up the `right to buy' old council estates rather than build new stuff. I just thought it may have implications across a whole host of local authorities as well as your strategy. Whilst it is focused on temporary housing...