• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

Your positive commitment to the river crossings package will be warmly welcomed by all shades of opinion in the London Borough of Bexley which has lost out significantly in economic development terms through the lack of river crossings. Will you perhaps be able to reassure residents of Bexley that those warm words will be put into action in two regards? Will you endorse the observation of your economic advisor that, to get the maximum regeneration benefits from the Thames Gateway, it's necessary to pursue not only the package of river crossings, but also the construction of the Crossrail line through...

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

That's welcome news. Are you prepared to scrap the idea of the bridges if the environmental case against them and the transport case against them is so overwhelming?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

You said last week in the Environment Committee that in transport terms there was no real value in these bridge proposals and that it was purely done on the basis of regeneration. Are the environmental impacts going to get a look in? Are you going to have a proper environmental impact assessment before you complete the consultation period?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

Are we to receive any formal response from you to the Whitelegg Report and the analysis in that report that traffic levels are likely to rise very significantly as a result of these bridges, that air quality will suffer very significantly because of the extra traffic and that there is little or no prospect of extra jobs, in spite of the huge amount of money being spent on them? Are you going to respond formally to the Whitelegg Report?

• Question by: Darren Johnson
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

Did you lobby specifically for funding from tolling for the Silvertown Bridge during the recent Dome negotiations?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

So, you're now saying that you're moving from 28,000 units to fewer than 20,000?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

So, what is your annual affordable housing target for London?

• Question by: Mike Tuffrey
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

Thank you and we await Friday. Can I ask you just to clear up one confusion for us then today? In November 2000 the Housing Commission, whose conclusions you endorsed, said that we needed 43,000 new housing units a year in London, of which 28,000 should be affordable. By last time we met, 22 May, your press releases were saying you had a target of 19,000 - I don't know where that number came from - and last week your housing advisor of the House of Commons issued a press release talking about 11,200 new affordable homes a year. Just...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

Following your comment about the Mayor of Moscow, may I take it from that that you're committed to extending home ownership in London and I refer in one of my other questions to you, to what prospects you're taking on that? What steps are you taking in order to deliver affordable housing rather than just relying upon government making more funding available? What steps do you propose to take to use your leverage, as Mayor, to develop significantly the intermediate sector through perhaps pushing for the adoption of the type of imaginative rent to mortgage shared ownership schemes that we...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 19 June 2002

Just on that last point, in today's new `Ken Hating Conservative Mayor Supporting Evening Standard" they do state that bus operators in London have a concern that the traffic light modifications that you are not in control of and are not your responsibility are going to cause them difficulty in actually achieving their targets because you're slowing them down along with the rest of the traffic. Are you going to make any allowances for that in your relationship with the bus companies and the timetables that you set?