• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

First, a question if I may to Mary Reilly on this issue of how many businesses are now happily signed up and how the progress is going because I have had one letter from you but you did undertake, when we spoke about this at Mayor's Question Time, that I would have a regular update. I have written to you in the last two weeks asking what has happened to that regular update and I have not heard from you since. I am just slightly disappointed with that. Perhaps you could guarantee now that I will get that letter in...

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

Thank you for that. All the businesses I have spoken to, including of course Pullmans et al, have all said that there is no circumstance in which they -- they are clearly aware and they had never asked. Can you confirm then that some businesses have asked for amounts of four, five, six times the amount? Have they, because you have not actually answered that question? You said they have aspirations but the point is that the Mayor said that people ' in a very public statement in the Sun newspaper ' that they are asking, many businesses are asking...

• Question by: Damian Hockney
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

No they did not. You have got that wrong, once again. I made that quite clear at the last meeting with the Mayor here when he answered questions on it, they did not issue such a press release. What they did was, they put out a statement, which made clear - a statement which Strettons stand by - saying that after the Olympic Games is over that land will be worth x amount, five, six, seven, eight times the amount - but they were absolutely clear that they were not asking for that. Further, I also understand from a large...

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

I want to come back to you David (Lunts). You talked about the spend on (section) 106 (planning) gain and, when you see a planning application, everybody is rushing to benefit from the 106 gain. Can you clarify, whose 106 gain is it? Is it the boroughs? Is it the LDA's? And what lever do you as the GLA have to pull if it is the borough or if it is the LDA? Let us have some clarity on the record about who is responsible for 106 spend around the whole Olympic site or going as far out as Thames...

• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

Given we are talking more specifically about the flood threat, could you give us an update on some of the work presumably you are doing with the Environment Agency on the Thames Estuary 2100 Project (TE2100), in light of the Thames Barrier not likely to meet its present specifications from 2030 onwards?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

This does not seem to take account of the latest thinking and the flood risk hierarchy, which is now in planning policy. It seems to be: cram as much in and build bigger and bigger defences rather than taking a far more sophisticated view and taking account of the flood risk hierarchy.

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

Could I come back and say, within the Olympic Park, whose 106 is that now that the LDA has purloined it?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

One of the methods that you could accommodate this flood risk is through the Green Grid. Now, I am not seeing any movement on this. I am not seeing the finance in place. I am not seeing, in any serious way, that you are actually going to put that in place.

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

I am pleased you welcome it. Are you going to take on Board the specific amendments that are proposed in the Strategic Flood Risk Assessment, including the proposal that any new development contribute to an overall reduction in flood risk?

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 07 December 2005

I wanted to react to a point that Jenny Jones (AM) made and to then ask a question because I feel very disheartened that she feels that nothing is happening, as Jenny said, on Green Grids, particularly when Darren (Johnson, AM) told me during the budgetary process that agreement with the Mayor would get things done rather than agreement with the Assembly on the budgetary process. Is Jenny right when she says that nothing is being done on Green Grid?