• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

Empty properties - do you think local authorities should be making more use of compulsory purchase to deal with the problem of empty properties and can you play a role as Mayor in pushing that forward?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

The £200,000 is that the maximum cost that will be spent on actually hosting the celebrations, as opposed to the transport and policing costs or will other public money be coming from the other functional bodies to host the celebrations?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

So, was that in the budgets or where has that money come from, that £1.7 million?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

We will all hope that nothing terrible happens, but I have to say, to be barely a month away, one month and whatever it is, four or five days, and not have a safety plan in place and agreed, is a concern. In terms of the money, the LDA £1.8 million is presumably coming out of the promotional funds that we already know about. Where is the TfL £1.7 million coming from? Is that to keep the tubes running through the night?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

No, it is very useful to have both because that is an awful lot of money to be spending on policing, transport and promotion if we do not have some of the basics in place, like a safety plan, because that was always the concern about New Year's Eve. From our side we have very much supported having a major set of events around that time, although obviously not all congregated around midnight in Trafalgar Square. Our concern is that despite repeated efforts from the Assembly side I think Eric (Ollerenshaw) chaired a scrutiny in the early days around New...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

And the answer to the first part of the question " the safety plan?

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

We do not get much for your money at all, no. When we did the original scrutiny, which, if you remember, put all the blame on that dreadful Labour Government that you are now trying to rejoin, there was some quite important evidence from Sir Bob Geldof about commercial sponsorship. Now where is that in the middle of all this? Too many of your schemes as we see talk about sponsorship but then it turns out sponsorship is actually from other parts of the GLA. What is being actively done to get real, big commercial sponsorship?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

I strongly support the position you have taken on the loss of open space in local authority areas, even though that might occasionally make me unpopular in my area. But clearly, once the space is lost, it is lost forever. I think this is an area where there needs to be far greater development dialogue between yourself and the boroughs; a very delicate area because, of course, with increasing demand for public facilities new schools, new hospitals etc, you very often find the authorities have sold off the land that it sits on, which they could have previously built on...

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

I know there is a particular planning case you are looking at at the moment, which refers to a field in my own constituency in Croydon, the Rowdown Field, so obviously you cannot comment on that. What are the basic principles that would allow you exceptionally, when you are giving consideration to a case on playing fields or even allotment sites, to give approval for development of such sites? What would the basic principles be?

• Question by: Noel Lynch
• Meeting date: 19 November 2003

What can you do to stop authorities deliberately running down playing fields as in Haringey, to make it easier for them to sell it?