• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

Clearly, the Strategic Rail Authority (SRA) has been failing London. What proposals have been made with regard to a London regional rail authority?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

Of course, I understand your desire as a regional politician to expand your empire and take on the power to control more things, no doubt for the good of Londoners. Our experience of taking responsibilities from Government is that they inevitably come with a bill that Londoners have to pay in the end. Have you costed your proposal for a regional rail authority and, if so, how much would it cost Londoners?

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

Have you actually costed it and worked out how much it would cost Londoners and how much it would put on the Council Tax? As a responsible politician who bears in mind the consequences of the decisions you make, I would have expected you to do that.

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

Liberal Democrats have always been in favour of a London regional rail authority, so the more power transferred to this authority the better. I am always concerned when the Government suddenly agrees or goes towards what we have been asking for over a long period of time because it generally means we will get `shafted', to use the word that comes to mind, although I apologise for the language. I read today that the Government is giving you powers to purchase extra trains on the busiest routes to ease rush hour. Are they going to give us some money too...

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

This particular section of the NCR is on a right-angled bend and last week a lorry overturned there because it was obviously going too fast and its load spilled onto the crossing and the pavement where schoolchildren had been walking only a few hours earlier. This has raised great safety issues about the speed of traffic at that section and what can be done to alleviate it. Can you ask TfL what they are doing, particularly at that corner, because it depends on what widening scheme or not takes place there in the future?

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

This particular section of the NCR is on a right-angled bend and last week a lorry overturned there because it was obviously going too fast and its load spilled onto the crossing and the pavement where schoolchildren had been walking only a few hours earlier. This has raised great safety issues about the speed of traffic at that section and what can be done to alleviate it. Can you ask TfL what they are doing, particularly at that corner, because it depends on what widening scheme or not takes place there in the future?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

How do you think the NCR is doing in that?

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 15 July 2004

Where will that come in your priorities in terms of what you have from the Spending Review to spend on London? You have a number of un-funded projects. Where will the NCR be in your priorities?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 24 June 2004

I am really glad to hear that because there is a huge wealth of knowledge out there. I do think that if a cyclist had been involved in the planning of that cycle route over Blackfriars Bridge the fatality would not have happened. I used it once and was so shocked that I did not use it again. You made the point that there has been a lack of staff and resources and clearly one of the problems is that staff at TfL do not understand the wider aspects of the whole cycling agenda. Also, although we have someone in...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 24 June 2004

I also have problems with the funding that goes to cycling in London. Are you prepared to spend more money on cycling over the next four years, particularly on things like on-road training for schoolchildren, which is a very controversial issue at the moment but the more of it is done the safer it will become?