• 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...

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

That is interesting that we suddenly use kilometres rather than miles. I hope that was not an attempt to confuse me. It nearly succeeded, but I think you are just about spot on there with the Department of Transport's own figures, which in the sort of language I think more people will understand, effectively shows that at best probably you have achieved a mile and a half extra traffic speed since Congestion Charging was introduced. I have to say, I think most people would agree that that was terribly disappointing given what you promised, and indeed what you have spent...

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

One of the things that is causing a problem with the Fulham Palace Road in terms of congestion and the way cars are jammed up and cannot move at all, quite a lot of the day, is the way the buses come out of the station there on the Broadway, swing out and actually find themselves blocked by traffic and actually end up blocking the access from Fulham Palace Road onto the Broadway. Is there anything you could look at to see whether we could not find better ways of getting the buses gaining access to the Broadway so we...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

I think most Londoners would support that in some measure. However, the limited powers of stop and search do not allow for random searches as indeed exercised by a police officer. We are still missing the actual issue. On the broader issue of knife crime, Mr Mayor, is your office commissioning any research to try and identify why our young people believe they need to carry knives? What are you doing to identify the failures of our generation, which has led the youngsters which are following us, to believe that they need to carry a knife for defence? Are you...

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 21 June 2006

You will get back to me to advise us if you are doing anything proactively?