• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

So, we could do a deal that we give up appointments for the strategies?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

On the production of strategies generally, do you think it's an anomaly that in the Government's White Paper on regional government they were proposing that the regional assembly had the power to amend strategies produced by the executive, yet in London we have no power to amend the strategies that you produce to as Mayor; all we can do is produce a report to the Mayor? Do you think that's an anomaly? And do you think that the London Assembly needs to be given greater powers in line with those proposed for other regional assemblies around the country?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

Can I say that as the Chair of the Assembly's Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee I have reported to colleagues, a conversation that I have had about the GLA and the Culture Strategy. I then sent that information to members on behalf of the Committee. I would agree with members that the delays are unfortunate, but my concern is really the message that it sends out to Londoners. I really would like to just say that and ask for the Mayor to confirm that the delays no way represent a disinterest or, if you like, a secondary interest, in this...

• Question by: Angie Bray
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

If I could just return you to the Cultural Strategy, or rather the lack of it, I'm wondering if one of the reasons why it's taken so long is that the quality of the draft strategy wasn't up to scratch? And looking at what's been said about it yesterday in the Evening Standard I see that Norman Lebrecht has described it as `dispiriting reading'. I think his main accusation against you is that in seeking to influence the arts in London you're actually trying to control them by making public subsidies dependent on people signing up to your particular social...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

Would you accept that, very frequently, you have used Imperial Wharf and Hammersmith and Fulham as being the example of the 50% target being workable, and would you accept that that is demonstrated yet again in the Weatherall report, as being a wholly exceptional case which actually took up two years of the borough's housing grant and had a number of other factors coming together, including the promise of a Tube station which never actually happened, and that you cannot base an overall strategy for London upon a one-off and atypical example? Doesn't that indicate that there is a real...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

The reason I'm gloomy is because everything that I see and all these studies that are published, show that we're falling well short of what we need. There was another one this week, the Corporation of London's place in the UK economy from the LSE. A quarter of this report actually focussed on housing, and the critical role it plays in London's economy, and it concludes, "Housing requirements in London, therefore, remain far ahead of potential provision". Another study says that 45,000 units per annum are needed, not the 32,000 that you're working on. So that's yet another study to...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

I willingly concede that there is some improvement. Why I keep coming meeting after meeting on this issue is that that falls well short, even under the most optimistic assumptions, of what is actually needed. Did you notice, in the report, that of the survey they conducted: of 22 out of 33 London boroughs, 11 out of 27 developers, 7 out of 10 social landlords and 3 landowners, of all of those only 1 respondent believed that the 50% target was achievable? Do you accept that for a strategy to be successful it has to be credible? Isn't it desperately...

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

Can I just say that if you have read, you haven't understood the point being made by the study, which does blow a hole below the waterline in the assumptions that are in your plan in terms of the achievability of affordable housing targets. Can I push you on what was perhaps the most worrying thing, for me anyway, that this study reveals about the role of the private sector, in terms of your assumptions? It says that your assumptions do not reflect the real-world behaviour of landowners and developers, pages 4 and 6: 'We believe that landowners are now...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

The proportions are the wrong way round perhaps.

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

You make the point about increasing planning applications. Would you accept that planning applications do not necessarily lead to development because it depends if the developer ultimately thinks what he can get permission for, is worthwhile in terms of proceeding? One way of actually producing real development, as opposed to applications, would be perhaps, to look again at the question of intermediate housing. Would you perhaps accept that not enough work is being done, by yourself or your officers, on encouraging new and more imaginative means of getting low-cost entry into the `housing to buy" market? That"s where the real...