• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 25 February 2004

Given your financial projections were so disastrously wrong on the central London Congestion Charge " and I might very well agree that raising revenue was not the point " the point is about TfL's ability to financially project accurately. What will you do if it is a disaster on the next scheme? Is that behind the negotiations you had with Capita? As I understand from Capita, who are gagged in this, they were forced into a punishment regime, a customer hostile regime.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 25 February 2004

Nevertheless, the response rate to the survey was about 1,600, which by any standards is a reasonable sample; it is about the sort that MORI itself would be proud of, which I think was the polling organisation that you used. I think the problem you have is that it demonstrates that far from being this fabulous thing that you were brandishing in front of me and saying I would lose my seat over, it has turned out to be very unpopular indeed. The trouble you are having is trying to cover that. If I may go back to what we...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 25 February 2004

Partly to read this into the record of the meeting, are you aware that the report which Kensington and Chelsea Council received on its survey included the statement from the officers that `respondents are not representative of the borough population'? They stated that very clearly. By the way, there were 1,880 responses of which 83% were car owners, and 85% of those who were borough residents were car owners, and that is not representative of Kensington and Chelsea. Given that we live in a world where various people, particularly the Tories, accuse others of spin, would you not see this...

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 25 February 2004

I agree with you, but that is not the problem.

• Question by: Diana Johnson
• Meeting date: 25 February 2004

I wanted to explore around the local authorities that are failing or refusing to make decisions and then the process of appeal and the cost that will be borne by local Council Tax payers for the cost of going to appeal and in many cases of the local authority losing. Are you in a position to do any analysis of that and give any view about the failure of the proper planning processes being used by local authorities in the first place?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 25 February 2004

The Plan involves quite a lot of compulsion. For example, you require an aggregate of 50% affordable housing and say that one of the ways you can do that is by requiring higher densities. You are also refusing blanket opposition to tall buildings. You say it should be dealt with on a site-by-site basis. I am sure you will accept that this affects a great number of boroughs who will fear for the character of their environment. Are you also aware that it will stop a considerable amount of housing development? Evidence was given to the Planning Committee yesterday from...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 25 February 2004

I welcome the fact that you have embraced the 30,000 target. Every time I have raised housing with you over the last two years in these forums, you have resisted the issue. The question now is how seriously you have embraced this 30,000 per year target when the monitoring in the Plan is still against the 23,000 and when the Plan still talks about simply achieving or exceeding the 23,000 instead of actually achieving the 30,000. Why was the Housing Capacity Study not commissioned last year so that we would have up-to-date figures? Why have you waited four years before...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 25 February 2004

I accept the difficulty, which is why I focused on the new builds for which official Government figures show that even though there has been a modest increase for the last few years, if you go back 10 years we were building more houses in London than we are now, even after four years. I will focus on affordable housing because since you were elected homelessness in London is up 14,000 and overcrowding is amongst the worst in the country with something like one in ten households in inner London overcrowded. The 50% planning target for affordability is welcome, but...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 25 February 2004

I could give you a `Cook's tour" of boroughs in London of every political complexion who are doing their job in scrutinising planning applications and listening to local concerns. Of course, there are delays and if borough planning processes were quicker that would help, but you cannot seriously pretend that is the problem. The problem is that you have been in office for four years and the housing crisis is worse at the end of the four years than it was at the beginning. Would you not agree that we need a concerted and co-ordinated campaign involving the private sector...

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 25 February 2004

Last week, I had a meeting with Terry Morgan, the Chief Executive of Tube Lines, who said that the service charge part of the £360 million was actually paid upfront in advance and not when the bill was due.