• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

Even if you are able to make it mandatory, it would take a very long time for the economies of scale that you suggest to actually operate. What is going to happen in the short term, because presumably you want this to come in as soon as possible? Indeed, we are all agog to see what housing powers you are about to get, the new planning powers you are about to get. In the short term, there is going to be this increase, which your advisor thinks could be 10%. Are you going to assist developers to provide this energy...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

So, you would make a trade-off. In the short term, energy efficiency is going to be more important than affordable housing?

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

I just wanted to ask you, have you not found in your own meetings with boroughs and with developers in boroughs that the developers themselves would like to have a level playing field? One of the key problems is that if there is not a proper regulatory system in place, they do not have that level playing field. Have you not also brought out sustainable design construction guidelines and put a policy in the alterations to the London Plan which says that the first thing the developers must do is build in a sustainable way, which reduces energy and costs...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

That has got absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with affordable housing. What, in effect, you are doing is that you are going to constrict and restrict the boroughs' freedoms which they currently have. That cannot possibly be acceptable. If Richmond, for example, thinks that they want to be even stronger, and I suspect that since there are loonies there now, they have taken over the asylum they are probably going to want to increase the figure that you are giving for carbon reduction. However, that is their right, not your right. It should be the right of every London borough...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

Thank you for that. We have already discussed the unaffordability of affordable housing. Is this not going to increase the cost of providing affordable housing even more? Your advisor told the Environment Committee that she estimated it would increase costs by between 5% and 10%. How do you propose that additional cost should be absorbed to ensure that affordable housing is at least as affordable as it is now?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

Would it be fair to say this, that your inclination will always be to drive towards the top end of the matrix rather than the bottom?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

I will take that as `yes'. Can I finally just ask you to ask your planning department, who may not know the area well, to at least try and spell `Chislehurst' correctly?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

I understand your point about Redbridge because of course that is, as we have both agreed in the past, a town centre development and does not fit within the London Plan definition of suburban. What I am interested in is, against what you have just said, which I take on board at face value, the current applications in relation to the Ravensbourne College site at Chislehurst, which is in a suburban setting, which has a public transport accessibility score of 1 ' in other words at the lowest end. However, your officers have suggested that a density of 48 per...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I note that there has been a tendency, when one monitors applications, for your officers to push towards the higher end of the matrix rather than at the lower end. Of course, in the London Plan revision you are seeking to increase that 30 minimum up to 35. What concerns me is this: the London Plan itself defines suburban as areas with predominately lower density development, such as detached or semi-detached houses, predominately residential, small building footprints, typically buildings of two to three storeys. However within that context, the revised London Plan ' depending on the...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

Nevertheless, it was something you had promised was going to be massively improved as a result of your Congestion Charge, and I think we are all agreeing ' including you ' that that has been one area at least where it has failed to deliver. Can I just quickly turn your attention to the road speeds in a new report by Transport for London in Hammersmith and Fulham, which suggests that actually Hammersmith and Fulham's road speeds are probably amongst the worst in London. Thinking in particular of the Fulham Palace Road, which is absolutely appalling even now, what can...