• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

Given that in Monday's newspapers, there was an opinion poll showing that the public were very strongly against any additional charging for air traffic and the fact that, therefore, demand is likely to increase for London's air space, how is the need for air traffic going to be solved in the London area? Does it not mean that some extra expansion is needed at some of London's airports?

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

Mr Mayor, I am part of an informal group led by John McDonnell (MP for Hayes and Harlington), which involves MPs, GLA Members ' I think Darren (Johnson) is part of it ' and boroughs who are concerned about the problems of Heathrow and prospective problems. I was intending to phone your office today to follow up conversations requesting a small amount of money ' boroughs are putting some money in ' to do some work in order to be able both to anticipate and answer what the Department for Transport is saying. Can I tell Mark Watts (Senior Policy...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

I think the challenge we have here is that within all of the main political parties, there is a divergence of views on this issue. The planning for growth in the southeast and maintaining our competitive position pretty unambiguously points, on current behaviour, towards us needing probably two extra runways in the next 30 years somewhere in the southeast of England in order to meet that demand. While I appreciate your comments about displacing people from air travel, do you recognise that that is currently the case?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

Could I just follow that up briefly, because you are talking about changing the technology, but I think this question is about changing the behaviour of people. One can do that through tax and pricing, which I think is a very constructive way of looking at the problem, as you have illustrated with a £6 flight to Europe. It might also be that London could play a useful role in promoting, for example, a high-speed rail link to somewhere like Manchester, where there are currently 40 flights a day, I believe, which do not really make sense, if you can...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

That points me very neatly, Chair, onto the second part of my question, then, and I think that follows very neatly, also from the climate change question and the work launched yesterday, which is that London has a role to help set better terms of debate on the use of energy to encourage more sustainable uses of transport. First of all, I suspect you agree with that.

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

Can you confirm that the interim plan specifies a boundary for the third runway development that could involve as many as 700 homes being demolished? Do you find that acceptable?

• Question by: Richard Barnes
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

Mr Mayor, can I thank you for your commitment to the people of my constituency and around Heathrow, and I will thank you for your commitment on their behalf to supporting any public enquiry which comes on. You will appreciate the 700 people whose houses have been identified for knocking down, the 2,500 who have been identified as living within 500 metres of the knock-down houses, and the 37,000 whose air quality is going to be destroyed if the village of Sipson becomes a terminal and the third runway gets put in are living under an enormous pressure. They '...

• Question by: Geoff Pope
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

Do you find that it helps that Mr Rod Eddington (Chief Executive, British Airways) who, of course, as chief of British Airways, has actively led the campaign for expansion and the third runway at Heathrow, is now acting as transport advisor to the Labour Government?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

Why dump the problem on Stansted, just because it is outside London.+ Are you taking a harder line now and being firmer? We welcome your position on Heathrow, but why can you not take the same position on Stansted?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 22 June 2005

Mr Mayor, the Ministers have announced a step-up of night flights, and they have done that by, first of all, announcing a new night-flight restriction, which makes no attempt to correct the defects of the noise quota system by introducing a new lower category for so-called `quieter aeroplanes,' whenever that happens. It is going to boost the number of arrivals before dawn. They have never accepted the fact that there is noise pollution from aeroplanes that crosses right across Wandsworth to Clapham Common and into Lambeth. There is, however, new mapping done by the Civil Aviation Authority on EU data...