• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 21 February 2007

Do you think the Casino Advisory Panel was given virtually no choice by the Deputy Prime Minister's antics and the lobbing that went on in favour of Greenwich?

• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 21 February 2007

In Wembley, where the application was withdrawn, the world was going to end if there was no super casino, but yet, much more imaginative schemes have come forward now as proposals to produce proper regeneration as opposed to get rich schemes. Do you not think that that is what is going to happen in Greenwich?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 21 February 2007

I really have to come in here. You know perfectly well when you handed over the social housing in the huge estates in Wandsworth the state they were in. Wandsworth looks after its estates, we have mixed tenure on the estates, we still have loads of rented properties on our estates. The other thing they did, they reached the target on hidden homes. They have gone out of their way to build homes in all sorts of places. We know that a mixed tenure works. Otherwise you have ghettos. This is why life in Wandsworth is so much better for...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 21 February 2007

Well I am glad to hear you say that as far as you are concerned it is a political decision, because there are four Labour boroughs where the target is infinitely less than your target; the London Boroughs of Newham, Greenwich and Tower Hamlets, you have accepted less than the target. It is only, I suggest, that because Hammersmith has become Conservative controlled, that you have decided that you are going to oppose this. Your Housing Strategy itself - and you repeated it this morning in an earlier discussion on housing - suggests that boroughs know what their own needs...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 21 February 2007

If that is the case, why have you decided to issue a decision on the Prestolite factory site in Larden Road, where you think that their decision, which was supported by your officers, on the share between socially rented and housing which is affordable, was wrong?

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 21 February 2007

I was keen to know your views on shared ownership schemes and whether they are affordable any more in London? And whether we could, realistically, call them affordable housing, given the basic salary level requirements asked from Housing Associations are reaching £47,000 as a minimum, from the last few examples I have seen in my neighbourhood, and that, increasingly, 100% ownership is unattainable and they get hammered with service charges as well?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 21 February 2007

It so happens that Hammersmith and Fulham has the highest percentage of social rented housing in west London, it has the 11th highest percentage in the whole of London, it has 34% above the London average of social rented housing in this ward, and yet you have turned this down. What I particularly object to, in your attack on Hammersmith and Fulham, is that in your press release on the matter you have suggested they should consult Andrew Slaughter who is the Labour Member of Parliament for the area, rather than consulting the Leader of the Council, the person who...

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 21 February 2007

It is understandable that developers are very keen on the shared ownership schemes as part of their affording housing requirements. I would just like to see more of the subsidies we are putting in for housing for rent, rather than subsidising these schemes which I do not personally think stand up at all, increasingly.

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 21 February 2007

Well it may be a good idea to ask them if they do not want it straightaway, then you do not waste TfL's money or Greenwich Council's money on a programme which no one is going to support. Another of the options that is available here is for residents not to enjoy a level of discount. Will it be Transport for London or Greenwich Council who have the final decision on whether there is a resident's discount?

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 21 February 2007

It is interesting that you are taking a very cautious consultative approach on this project, rather unlike the debate on income support where you have not even spoken to the DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) but you have announced the date and some detail of the scheme. When is the earliest that any such Congestion Charging scheme could be introduced in your opinion?