• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

My information is that local sports facilities, whether they are pools or playing fields, are reducing. Some of the things you are talking about are these big flagship centres; they are not the local sports facilities that people find easy to access. How many of these big flagship structures are replacing smaller, more local things? How many of these are going to be in use in time for our kids to have any sporting ambition for the Olympics?

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

I never knew the Greens were the sporting type; I always thought they kept away from competitive sports! I am glad you have raised this issue because one issue I have pursued whilst I have been an Assembly Member is playing fields and the loss of them. Last year I managed to do something through the Assembly's Environment Committee on this. I was particularly focused on those not in the schools, which tend to get a lot of attention in the media, but all the other bits and pieces like old ILEA's (former Inner London Education Authority) pitches in Brent...

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

I have to just unpick that. You said the last time I spoke to you about it that Archway clearly needs to be sorted and that, because of its size and complexity, it would require years of planning and traffic studies. What I have also found out is that when you have a complex structure like this, one of the things you need is a TfL project manager. You do not need a project manager after the funds have been found, because it does not work that way. You need the project manager, especially in a case like this where...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

It is interesting that we said all along that we thought that improvements in bus services along that road would be a much more sensible solution than the tram. You have, however, spent about £30 million on this tram already. Is that not going to be money that is going to simply have been wasted if you now desert this preposterous plan that you have been pushing for some years?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

I think this is potentially startling news. Are you saying today, Mr Livingstone, that the West London Tram is not going to go ahead?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

Therefore are you going to be continuing to fund this team, even having said you are no longer going to proceed with the tram?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

Therefore what you are not able to say to the people of Ealing today is that you are cancelling the tram?

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

Of course you appreciate you are doing this negotiation with Jason Stacey, who is the Conservative Leader of Ealing, and the politics all along the route of the tram changed dramatically last year, almost entirely, I would suggest, on the back of your preposterous plan for the tram. Is that what you are now waking up to and recognising, which is why you are having to talk to Jason Stacey about finding other solutions?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

I was going to say I am ending on a note of political cross-party harmony on the Cross River Tram. I do not know what Angie [Bray AM] is going to say so I should withdraw that! In terms of the Cross River Tram, I was the Leader of Lambeth in the mid 1990s and persuaded the Cross River Partnership to fund the original feasibility scheme, so my support for this goes back more than ten years. Southwark is absolutely on board. In relation to Camden, let me just read you what my brief says; I probably should not but...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 18 July 2007

In previous statements you have made you have now questioned whether there is a need to proceed with the tram at all. On the ITV London debate you said, `If we get Crossrail we will review whether or not we proceed with the tram' and then, `Yes, I will be prepared to talk to the Councils to say, `Could we just improve the speed of the buses and see if we can get by with that?''. That is exactly the opposite of what TfL and you have argued for all these years, and it would be a disaster to backtrack...