Shaping London’s economic future

London is a safe place to live, with traffic slow moving and crime levels low. Air quality is also improving.

I am close to all the facilities and services I could possibly need. Public transport (buses, tube, overground) is accessible close to where I live.

Facilities for cyclists are constantly improving.

I can easily access all the cultural centres I want, either by walking or by a short bike/bus/tube ride. For exercise and outdoor activity, I have Hampstead Heath and Regents Park within a short walk, or Richmond Park and Kew Gardens within 40 minutes on the Overground.

Though I have lived in London all my life, I find there is always something new to explore.

Oh and need I start on the amount of ridiculou  tower blocks going up in West London at over 50 storeys - mostly for students. Some developers have already gone down.  Mayor needs to put his money where his mouth is. 

Interesting (but hardly surprising) that there were zero questions about crime, theft, identity theft from bins, muggings, shootings, knifings nor the 3 bus policy to get anywhere a mile away. I find London exceedingly tricky for thos aspects alone.

It is one of the most diverse and tollerant cities in the world and should be proud of it. It has cinemas, many musical theatres, theatres, concert halls, museums and does remain the cultural centre of the UK. And so it should not only do the 9m Londoners benefit but also for the tourists that bring in good money. Regretfully too much of the recent change has been politically driven by dogma.

So the Government have starved the London Councils of cash but directed them to provide many more services, the car is hated but the additional capacity for cross London movement that Crossrail 2 would have provided has not been progressed. We all cannot work either at home or in a 2 mile radius and many of us cannot cycle. The connections from the South West Rail have been degraded (fewer trains per hour) which drives down useage. We must restore those links.

We must provide more access to apprenticeship or vocational training and stop the universtites trying to produce academic courses for these subjects rather than practical ones and cease most academic research in these areas. We should be proud of those who want to raise their practical skills in exchange for better wages and better quality jobs. Areas such as Car and Bus Mechanics, Building trades, Production planning, Nursing, etc etc. These are areas that the workers from Eastern Europe were so proud of the skills and learning they had achieved.

We must be careful to be inclusive of the whole population or we risk alienating the young white males and women, they are ethnic groups that derserve as much attention as any other group.    

London's mayor seems determined to destroy its overall ambience and quality of life which has worsened significantly during his terms of office. Public transport, safety and the environment are worse, the grotesque obsession with "climate change"  and the persecution of older peopke, motorists and especially SMEs are all appalling. 

Public transport is too expensive, poor punctuality, often there are dirty buses, overcrowded

Areas that are heavily pedestrianised are often at rhe expensive of buses being able to move

20mph speed restrictions, 24hrs a day are ridiculous

There are too many chicken shops,nail parlours and barbers/haidressers

There needs to be a better consideration for older people who can still work - job opportunities for 50plus are abysmal, even though there is so much experience in this age-group

There is not enough attention paid to clean streets and neighbourhoods - get schoolchildren to do community work, same with able-bodied unemployed youth - too many chugging beer, smoking cigarettes and comparing tattoos! 

City Hall urgently needs to address the housing crisis and the cost-of-living crisis. The reality is that only people who are either independently wealthy/have family money, or benefit from right-to-buy can buy a flat anywhere close to where they live and work. 

Wages have not kept pace with spiralling housing costs (rent or to buy) so even if one saves enough for a 10-15% deposit over the years (while paying private landlords an extoriant amount to pay off their mortgages), the "mortgage affordability criteria" says that one cannot afford repayments on a flat, even though one pays a similar amount in rent every month. 

In my own case, I have looked for London Living Rent flats and none exist any where close to Islington, where I live and work, I have looked at shared ownership, but the minimum income for most flats is now (well) over £70,000 and so I fail the affordability criteria for even a one-bed flat, when I would need a two bed (I work from home). However, if a partner and I tried to buy together, we would be over the £90,000 maximum threshold. Since moving to Islington in 2013, I have had to move 9 times from rented accommodation  - 8 times because the landlord wanted to sell, refurbish, or just to hike rent. Being forced to move with two months' notice (s. 21) takes it toll - (admin burden of looking for a new flat, dealing with reference checks etc, boxing up and moving, end-of-tenancy admin and cleaning) and is financially costly and puts one at the whim of the market availability at any given time. 

While I know that I am better off than a lot of Londoners financially, I still do not have any security in my housing situation. After rent and bills/grocery, I've been saving most of my income for a deposit for years now, and I am still no closer because of hikes in rent and interest rates, and because of the cost-of-living crisis. 

To thrive in London, people who actually work for a living, need to have affordable housing in London.

Lack of affordable (or increasingly even unaffordable) housing blights the future of London, at least as a place where a wide range of people can live. No doubt those who are already rich will continue to get richer. 

Those who live in London also have to take some responsibility for it; the filthy streets, the lonely people, the broken fences that we could be encouraged to come together to help mend. 

It's hard though when the areas we once lived in and took some pride in price us out and we become afraid of each other.

London has a long and wonderful history of change, so it is possible for things to get better, or at least to change so that more people can feel part of the future of London. This may need us to turn from greed, perhaps for some to expect a little less materially, for economic growth to be shared more fairly, for fairer distribution to be prioritised over further unlimited growth (which, to return to the first point, now seems only to further enrich the rich).

Or in fewer words, we must understand the responsibility we have for and toward each other as well as ourselves.

But then I am some old lefty, obviously...

To much crime. Not enough seating & to much of the same business. Not much for disabled people to do. Lewisham is now a crime hell hole, that is unsafe to go inot the town centre. If i could afford to move i would. 

Traffic Congestion is a problem in my area. I would like to cycle more but Public Transport is dire, everyone uses a Car (especially parents taking their kids to school) and there are NO decent cycleways. As soon as I get out of Greater London the traffic density tends to decrease. Crime is on the increase, we need Police on the street to discourage Crime. It doesn't help that the nearest Police Station to my area is miles away resulting in poor response times. High Street is mainly charity shops, no retail to speak of. Only go to high street for chemists or a coffee these days. Need to revitalise High Streets somehow, need a plan but Outer London does not seem to have one. Mayor spends way too much time focusing on the City and ignoring Outer London, he doesn't care about the Suburbs other than to take our GLA money

I have just completed the survey and feel that there is a difference between issues in the part of London where I live (Croydon - Dirty neglected high street, beggars and homelessness, terrible planning decisions, historically incompetent/corrupt council, unkempt parks) and Central London which is a much pleasanter place to visit on the whole. I am retired so can’t easily comment on job opportunities etc.

The quality of the business offer on the High Street continues to deteriorate. There is no incentive for independent quality offers to be present. Coffee shops, charity shops and cheap outlets predominate making the High Street look and feel cheap and unappealing. Combine this with excessive under investment in the quality and management and maintenance of public open space and there is a continuing decline in community building and local ‘ownership’. It doesn’t need to be like this. 

I don't see myself living in the capital for the rest of my life because of how unaffordable and overcrowded it is. 

London is amazing and has a lot to offer, but the huge rise in house prices, lack of affordable places to live and the levels of antisocial behaviour are not something I'm happy put up with for years to come.

I work approximately 1 hour from home and the quality of the public transport has been really poor over the last few years, with no improvement in sight. 

Although the area where I live is nice, the amount of scams, thefts and anti social behaviour make it an unpleasant environment. 

I see my future in the capital the same as now . I am scared of getting mugged every time I step outside, the streets surrounding my house are full of litter and fly tipping is costing our council a fortune cleaning up . There are council houses being sublet even on my street and then filled with vulnerable people, shoplifting is rife , the police won’t come out . My high street is full of filthy chicken shops and pound stores with their clutter lining the streets .

Safety, cost of living, facilities etc yet my council tax is an all time high, my universal credit is not sufficient for me to survive and there are constant errors/difficulty communicating. Also, I should get PIP but I don't because of my circumstance. I was failed in terms of support and my daughters 9 years ago when I experienced DV & now things have escalated and are at an all time low. Oh & 2 years later I am still waiting to be assessed for ADHD/Autism despite knowing my whole life & my daughters having both. In fact its part of the reason I feel I struggle alone. Not to mention all my inflammatory conditions & illnesses!! Where is the single parent help wjen you need it? Just get by I guess because we are a burden... yet guess what? I worked since I was 16 until I lost my job & also I have a degree!! Whoop di doo!! I will overcome my trauma eventually on my own I guess....

My future in this city will depend, in great part, in how safe I feel. The local high street (most high streets) are becoming ghost towns, with shops closing down and sitting empty. Several areas including Streatham are now seeing pickpockets roaming around either on foot or on bicycles, looking for mobiles or bicycles to steal. 

A good job is one that allows me to cover my bills and also save a bit, not just live paycheck to paycheck.  

No discussion of how transport (and specifically low emission transport) will support the plan. And no mention of how the lack of supporting infrastructure (GP surgery, dentist, hospital etc) will keep Londoners well enough to work. No mention of how climate change and flash flooding could make existing spaces uninhabitable. Just seem to want to get us all shopping more for stuff we don't need. Depressing.

I am concerned about a the lack of explicit distinction between economic growth and sustainable growth and would strongly encourage City Hall's Economic Development team to look to far-sighted cities like Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Brussels who are basing their post-covid recovery on the Doughnut Economics model. This prioritises growth of well being and a realistic acknowledgement of the limits we cannot continue to cross if the future is to benefit life on our planet