Planning our future London

I have recently moved to a new development in London. The population is expected to triple in the next couple of years, but it is very isolating at the moment. It is advertised with having great transport links, which have been useful. But, the area is lacking basic amenities and many jobs could be created for local residents as well as people slightly further afield if basic shops were to be opened. It has all the greenery, planters along the street, cycle lanes and car free roads you would want but there is added stress of having to get a train or bus to get basic necessities.

Any advances in any areas need to be seen holistically. For example, new jobs are great, but the transport needs to be good enough for people to take advantage of them or housing needs to be affordable so people can live near their work. London must be a city which is liveable - from work to transport, housing and community. 

The 'authorities' should stop putting out surveys with a limited choice of answers that only allow people to give answers that the 'authorities' want to hear and actually do what they are paid for - serve the people, not pursue their own political agendas.

If the authorities want people to use public transport like buses make them more user friendly, at bus stops provide shelter from wind, rain and sun. Provide seating for those that need it. Ensure that buses do not leave the stop early as has happened to me several times recently, 3-4 minutes before the scheduled time I have been approaching the stop just to see the bus speeding away.

To reduce pollution get rid of all the hated speed bumps and ramps. Let cars and other vehicles travel at nearer to their optimum fuel efficiency and sequence traffic light to optimise travel not hinder by necessitating unneccessary braking, accelleration and idling.

Blocking off roads just means that vehicles have to travel further using more fuel, adding to both expense and pollution as well as wasting peoples time.

Building on all the office and industrial sites does away with local jobs and makes travel and pollution worse as people have to travel further to work!

I have to agree with sentiments expressed within the comments below; this survey was nothing more than an incredibly immature attempt at the authors asking questions that can only result on a huge pat on the back and confirmation that the community is happy with all of the measures that city hall has imposed upon us and they need more of the same.

When are we as tax paying adults going to be able to think for ourselves, nanny doesn't always know best. sometimes we have ideas that may just warrant consideration and contemplation.

More and better paid jobs ate needed in the outer London boroughs to avoid commuting for hours.  I like the idea of of having more shops, offices and other local businesses in my area to support this. A successful high street has fewer nail bars/tattoo parlours and charity shops

Hello - I do think this survey wasn't the best designed, maybe by design, but I hope this is also taken into consideration when reporting.

Anyway, my main concern is that London is dying- the high streets are empty and some shops can't stay open for more than a year. I am NOT saying the solution is to bring more people there by force (i.e return to the office) what I am saying is maybe we should reconsider what the high street and the surrounding neighbourhoods actually need and want and will use?

Wellbeing spaces, art & Creative studios, community & social events , places to hire out? 

And maybe I'm a. dreamer but surely if we had more safe and connected bike lanes people will use cars less? Before moving to London I used to Cycle everywhere but now I don't cycle as a mode of transport at all because central London doesn't have safe bike lanes. 

Let's hope that London steers away from the jungle of chicken shops, bookmakers and one pound shops. At this moment in time, it seeks that London is being Segregated by Design, certain areas only open to those who can afford to live or travel there. There is a tension in the air, pressure upon 'the people' and not just financial. Whilst we all want a greener, safer London it must be recognised that business, highstreets in the main, need the footfall, ULEZ, LTNs, expensive parking, additional restrictions all factors making life difficult for these businesses. 

We have all seen the arguments against cars and I wonder how some people do their weekly shopping. On the bus and tube and perhaps by bicycle? Methinks not. The arguments regarding air pollution is not supported by the data (true data that is, not conjecture) and the message that you can pollute as much as you like for £12.50 a day is not a sound argument when the PMs on the tube are so much higher than on our roads. And please stop bleating about this being a different type of pollution as you are sounding like the Government pushing Diesel cars in its day.

The recent changes the mayor has made, regarding various categories receiving more support, demonstrates that that his original plan was flawed and actually morally wrong. To him he is giving a gift. To 'us' it was always unfair from the start and still is.

Very much like this survey which does not permit you to opportunity to express what your true feelings are about London, Planning for the future, helping business and providing a greener London. The sheer number of roadworks permitted every 100 metres or so is a travesty, huge unused cycle lanes, poor filtering and bad traffic light sequency all create significant levels of pollution and frustrate 'the people'. London's Planners and Local Councils are incompetent and not held to account by anyone. A really poor show and yes, as soon as I can, I will get out of London, lock, stock & barrel! 

In my neighbourhood of Bankside it is the variety of businesses that makes it vibrant.  The railway arches have been key to allowing small start-ups.  Will the Arch Company encourage that?

The survey I just took is a complete joke.  Multiple choice questions with bog standard answers that don’t represent the way I feel and let’s face, Khan will manipulate anything to suit his own agenda anyway. 
i vwonder how khan feels about being THE worst mayor and politician, in London. I hope he realises how many people hate him. He deserves it for being such a lying, manipulative, power hungry narcissist. 
 

The current transport policies are on course to kill off the city we love and live in. The Low Traffic Neighbourhoods have already bankrupted hundreds of small businesses and killed tens of sick people when emergency vehicles could not reach them in time. The ULEZ expansion will make things worse and indeed the whole ULEZ is unsound because the air has been getting cleaner for years without it and the dirtiest and most harmful air is in any case in the Underground, not in the streets. At the same time, the borough councils are neglecting their basic functions such as street cleaning; and the police have abandoned any attenpt to catch thieves and burglars. We need all the closed local police stations to be re-opened.

LTN bans are creating neighborhood misery and nightmares, due to more dangerous local roads at night and longer journey times, including additional pollution, for local residents.

‘Local traffic’, which is motor vehicles with residential or business associations within a scheme area by definition cannot be reduced by LTN scheme movement bans other than being shifted from one area of a scheme to another. Therefore, traffic removed from one boundary road burdens other boundary roads creating traffic imbalances.
Furthermore, movement bans as a measure to “encourage travel in more active and healthy ways” may well sound as a hopeful incentive, but lacks rationale.  Walking to local convenience stores may sound like an encouragement to do shopping in a more 'active' way, however, it is unclear how ‘healthy' would be to carry heavy shopping over quite some distance.

Notwithstanding this, vehicular movement is an important natural surveillance tool that acts as a deterrent to opportunistic outdoor crime, especially at night. Banning motor movement through boundary roads results in deserted and segregated nearby local streets that give rise to robberies and knife crime.. 

Important decisions that include the permanent and unconditional motor ban for ‘local traffic' through neighbourhood boundary roads and hugely affect local people's lives should be taken on the basis of careful consideration of reality instead of vague and credulous wishful thinking. Needless to comment on feelings of entrapment and freedom curtailment because of the bans. 

These were a set of bonkers questions. Asking individuals to make huge generalisations about neighbourhood and all of London, in such a complex city, is weird/impossible. And the final question about suggesting that a single resident can opine on "happiness" across a whole neighbourhood using a menu of options beggars belief - I doubt the respondents even have a consistent view of what constitutes a neighbourhood.

This is the second time I have looked at one of your surveys and on both occasions the question design was awful.

If you really want feedback then organise proper deliberative forums where people can be informed by subject experts and can discuss a focused topic with a view to coming up with reasoned and consensual proposals. I am sure there are many residents who would be willing to engage. 

I wonder whether the problem is that this exercise is sponsored from City Hall and the Mayoral powers are quite limited. Might all make more sense if this was about the real stuff that happens in Boroughs.

Bringing forward my experience as a European nationals

I would like to see:

1. A wider one-way street system, to help avoid traffic congestion (as it's in use in Europe)

2. Shops open until 19:30 all over London (not only in zone 1!). This would greatly help people shopping more comfortably and would help smoothen the traffic, as it happen in Europe.

3. Shops spread across residential areas, not only on the high streets, as it is in Europe. This helps dilute overcrowding, traffic congestion and helps boost the local economy and small businesses.

Thanks 

Small and medium sized businesses need to be encouraged. Business rates should be scrapped. Emphasis now must NOT be for people to work from home, but to go out to work and support local businesses and high streets. Gas and electric charges need to be capped so as to be affordable for ordinary people and businesses. Power companies must not be able to reap exorbitant profits at the expense of the general population. This is a crime. Multinational chain stores should be kept out of the high street, as they kill the environment for small business and shoppers.

Encourage small and preferably local service businesses like builders, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, gardeners etc by abandoning the Mayor’s idiotic and damaging war on motor vehicles and ceasing altogether your drivel about “climate change” which has had largely beneficial effect on Londoners by reducing deaths from and cost impacts of cold.

I would use the underground more if it was air-conditioned in summer. It gets unbearable especially at peak times

Low Traffic initiatives and extravagant cycle lane provisions have made the roads very congested and slowed traffic. Park Lane is particularly absurd. I am somewhat disabled and rely on cars and buses to a great extent. It is quite maddening to be stationary in a long jam when empty or near empty lanes are cordoned off. 

The mayor is living in cloud cuckoo land if he actually wants us to believe that his ULEZ scheme is going to cut emissions. Let us focus on better services, fix potholes, clear rubbish, cut grass verges and bring back wonderful neighbourhoods of yesteryear. 

Start using our taxes for the good of Londoners instead of his city hall.