• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 15 December 2004

Why did you not publish your Business Plan before the election?

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 15 December 2004

Across the board, you are actually squeezing Londoners. You are increasing the Congestion Charge to try to get fewer people to use their cars. You are increasing bus fares on a rolling basis, by a quite considerable amount. You are also increasing Tube fares, so the cost of transportation in London is simply increasing well above, I would submit the cost of inflation.

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 15 December 2004

I see. You are treating buses as a sort of cash cow, in a sense.

• Question by: Peter Hulme Cross
• Meeting date: 15 December 2004

As you quoted from the Business Plan, which I have here, and you have quoted exactly correctly that the Plan is predicated on above-inflation increases in fares, while this Plan remains in force, so Londoners can expect above-inflation increases in fares for the foreseeable future.

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 15 December 2004

Sorry, but you did not actually tell Londoners before the election that those were your choices. You were not saying to them then, `Sorry, you have to get real here. You have got to put up with this, or you have to put up with that.' You were not telling Londoners that that was the only choice on the table. You were telling Londoners, `We have it under control', and that Gordon Brown was going to give you all the money that you needed to make their lives wonderful. All this banging on about your bond and how wonderful it...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 15 December 2004

I suspect the whole room shares the concern about 5,000. We would prefer to have something closer to 3,000, but is it not the case that the more important question is whether there is a parking control regime there which will discourage people from using their cars willy-nilly and will price the car parking in a way that encourages people to use public transport in exactly the same way as many years ago, before the charges went up, I used to drive and park just behind John Lewis in Oxford Street. Now, I would be out of my mind to...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 15 December 2004

Do you agree, first of all, that the provision of a regional shopping centre in Stratford is a pretty fundamentally important part of regenerating east London and providing confidence for people to live and work there?

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 15 December 2004

I accept that there have to be swings and roundabouts in these negotiations, but to go from 3,100 to 5,000 is far too much, and I think you have just been soft on the developers, and I do not think you should. I am also concerned about the Thames Gateway Bridge, and I think with such a huge parking facility, all it is going to do is encourage people to come into the area for high-level jobs and to drive over the bridge and to park in these parking spaces, and I really do not think that this is in...

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 15 December 2004

I am actually quite disappointed with that answer. I do not agree that they are within your London Plan. Your London Plan says that parking provision should take account of public transport. As Stratford is very well-served with public transport, the 10,000 car parking spaces break down as 5,000 spaces for retail, 3,800 residential, and 1,200 for office and hotel parking. 5,000 for retail is well in excess of the standards. It should be nearer to 3,100, and as somebody who is always banging on about sustainable communities - and with a genuine belief that that is what we ought...

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 15 December 2004

Can I ask you about the train operating companies. You have been quite critical in the past about their lack of cooperation when you have been trying to improve services. Have you any reason to believe that under the new legislation, they are likely to be more cooperative?