• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 10 October 2006

Within the issue of sustainable food, you will also, for example, make sure that the cultural diversity of London is reflected? That's a given, I presume?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 10 October 2006

You say it is not an absolute condition but only a year ago the Mayor said, talking about the living wage, and I quote, `That would be the bedrock on which the hiring and employment strategy of all parts of the Olympic family in London will rest'. At that stage the thinking very much seemed to be to make it a clear contractual condition and the QC's advice that the Mayor got with regard to the living wage in terms of GLA contracts was, `I do not consider that the GLA would be acting unlawfully if it gave some weight...

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 10 October 2006

A year before the occasion that Darren mentioned, there was a letter sent to London Citizens to which you, Seb, were a signatory, which said indeed that the strategies would be informed by the commitment to identify a living wage. I accept that is not a commitment but in line with your concerns about transparency, how are Londoners to know to what extent your decisions are informed by that?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 10 October 2006

But will contractors be expected to comply with it even if there are circumstances where that may not happen for some reason but will they be expected to comply with it?

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 11 October 2006

And that site, in fact, is rubble from World War 2, with just a brief covering of topsoil, so quite how successful it will be as an allotment site is open to question. What we are destroying here is an allotment site which has been there for nigh on 100 years and was left in perpetuity by Major Villiers to allotment holders.

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 11 October 2006

That plan has not yet been approved, I understand, in Waltham Forest.

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 11 October 2006

May I put something to you? Here is a quotation from the Olympics designers, `What makes architecture exciting is the ultimate connection with everyday life, communities, topographies, things that are already there. We talk about growing rather than deploying projects. This comes out of an interest in discovering, experimenting rather than producing or perfecting what we know'. That is Farshad Masali, the Olympic designer. Now a little bit of out of the box thinking could surely do something. What you are proposing is, levelling the land, reducing it by eight metres and building a concrete path, a massive great concrete...

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 11 October 2006

That equates to a very neat and tidy solution. You move the allotment holders off to Marsh Lane for a period of approximately seven years, I understand, and then you move them back to another site approximately close to where they are now. Unfortunately it is not going to work terribly well because it takes over seven years to establish a new allotment site. Frankly, if the plot holder is going to be facing two moves within seven years, a lot of them will simply give up. Perhaps the diehards will carry on, but I do not see that this...

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 11 October 2006

I honestly believe that you are trying to defend the indefensible, because looking at your own criteria, I am looking at `Is there market failure?' Well, clearly with the Notting Hill Carnival, which is a large-scale event promoting London's Caribbean community, there is not market failure. Is there a case for investment supported by the evidence? I cannot see any case for investment supported by the evidence. I just see it as duplication. And does it duplicate activities already underway in other parts of your Agency? The event was funded by two different parts of your Agency, directly from the...

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 11 October 2006

I think it is a complete and utter duplication. I think it is a scandalous waste of taxpayers' money, and I do not think it is the job of the LDA to spend scarce resources, which ultimately come from the taxpayers through government grants, on nonsense like this. Angie Bray AM): Is it not the case that this whole Showcase arose out of an offer made by Westminster City Council to Lee Jasper and the Mayor; that because of the discussion and the ultimate refusal to put the Carnival into Hyde Park, an offer was made that Hyde Park would...