Shaping London’s economic future

Crime and safety are my biggest concern, and I worry whenever my partner leaves the house to go somewhere local, especially at night.

I have never had to phone the police in my life until I had moved to London, and found myself phoning several times since I've been here; only once did they manage to have the resource to show up.

I hear about a lot of victims around my area on Nextdoor, I witness crimes on about a fortnightly basis, and some of my friends and neighbours have also been victimised.

If the situation doesn't improve within the next few years, this will be the reason I leave London for good.

The opportunities are not available for people in lower income jobs, housing is a huge problem with social housing costs increasingly unaffordable.  Many housing estates are being sold off to developers who's aim is profit not housing, in our borough we have new housing being built with the bare minimum falling into the affordable housing category, however at prices set to 20% below the market rate the prices are still totally out of the normal workers price range.  Neither of my children can afford to rent or buy in London, one has had to leave London completely.  Profits over people is rife and the wealth divide is very apparent.

I found the survey very narrow and felt like there was a predetermined desired outcome.  

Having lived in London my whole life I see the following issues 

1- street crime. Phone snatching and drug dealing openly happening in day light. If people don’t feel safe they won’t go out and spend. Need police budget spent on tackling street crime not policing online spats or providing marshals to the endless numbers of protest marches   

2- transport . Too many years of prioritising bikes and walking over everything else has been particularly harsh on disabled and elderly.  Too much of red routes and bus routes given over to cycle lanes when they should be down side streets for both cyclist safety and to enable bus lanes to be maintained . 
Some disastrous layouts such as the new layout at Surrey Quays are causing traffic chaos everywhere . Whilst it may be desirable to have fewer cars on the road , we can’t have growth if commercial deliveries can’t move ( food , office supplies etc ) and also it’s a disaster for disabled , elderly and poor if the buses are made slower ( and that often leads to routes being reduced in distance ) 

3. Business support.  Londoners do well and London does well when the City does well.  The financial district is becoming a ghost town. New change / Cheapside etc full of empty shops . Needs a boost. Needs staff back in office too . 
4.  Shops - Oxford street is horrible these days . The rickshaws blaring music , American sweet shops etc . Need to encourage some quality names back or it will die too .

I have loved London my whole life but the last 4-5 years has seen a noticeable deterioration.

I live in quite a nice area where there is a ok standard of living (though the food bank is still too busy), green space and good schools. Am very lucky but have worked hard to be here.  

The blight of it is being constantly worried about being mugged for my phone by young thugs on bikes, having my car stolen or being burgled, e scooters and delivery drivers driving dangerously.  Bikes are always been stolen. All of this is now easy pickings with no recourse. The police are not able/not interested. Even if you have footage.

Every quarter, there are gangs of young girls who have been beating up grown men and women, even children and filming it. Nothing happens to them though the offenders are well known and are often are in some type of trouble. 

The latest wave is having a bike purposefully hit your car. With their friends as witnesses filming, you are accused of causing an accident and poof your insurance is paying out for damage. 

I know some areas of London are worse and are effectively lawless. Something needs to be done. 

My wages have also decreased by 30% -40% since the pandemic. Even the GLA does not treat contractors fairly. 

 

There is more violence and gang and criminality than ever. The gig economy is not helping in some respects - the people who are allowed to whizz around London on e-scooters and bikes with no respect for other people is terrible why can’t we follow Melbourne and Paris and ban them

Why aren’t local communities encouraging people to look after their local area - some incentives might work if there was a borough wide competition - cleanest or prettiest or safest wins something 

Let’s start engaging with the youth of today as they are idle as nothing to do for them causing mayhem is a basic past time - just watch Freddie’s field of dreams 

Innovative idea to grow the economy

CRM system that automates tasks and connects to voicemail and makes the process ready made when customer calls, to improve customer service for example.

My local Borough high st lacks nationally known brands, inundated with mosques and muslim only community centre every time anything closes, betting shops &  fast food takeaways and car washes. Used to be a vibrant place to live with bars pubs, cinemas, branded shops great travel links but its a mono cultural slum hostile lacks integration, no one speaks English in public. Foreign language  on signd displayed on exterior of homes and businesse sometimes hard to tell what the business is for! I work in the city hadn't realised how much everyone hates each other locally until lockdown and wfh. Multiculturalism definitely doesn't and hasn't worked. This Borough, London and Britaian seriously need to stop demonisin  being British and  get integration of culture just like it was when i grew up. Fyi im brown and proud to be British but the moment you London forgot what binds us, its not diversity its division.

Very  concerned that free speech is being eroded and police too busy wwith prejudice policing. 

3 stabbings around me locally. Fear safety for myself and children. All authorities should do their jobs unbiased but for whatever reason certain demographics are favoured over others. 

Will definitely leave London in 3-5 Years may even leave Britian for a country where there are more practicing Christians. Alot of British values based on Christianity has been watered down to appease. It's wrong and has already seen a decline in the capital  city of a country that was once close to being a superpower despite our size. There are lots of brown and black people different religions educated who feel the same but choose not to say anything for fear of reprisals and negative labels. 

I have lived in London all my life and have raised my children here. I used to love central London and my local area but now find both over populated, with ugly high rise flats cramming more and more people into small spaces; congested, with overcrowded and unreliable transport; and out of control crime that is simply not being dealt with. More visible policing and action on low level crime and anti social behaviour is required to make me consider remaining in London; catering for more people will just push us out.

Our local high street is now unappealing with nothing to make me want to shop there. As, what is supposed to be, the borough's premier shopping centre it should have a greater variety of good quality retail instead of endless coffee shops and overpriced ice cream outlets, catering for unsuspecting visitors. A complete lack of public toilets also leads me to shop elsewhere. 

London does not need more people; the country's economy should be spread more evenly and good quality jobs need to be made available across the country, not concentrated in London and the south. You should be working with other areas of the country to support this objective so that people don't have to move to London. This would ease some of the pressure on housing that would benefit existing, native, londoners

Living in Greater London, I’m sick of seeing fields being concreted over with ugly blocks of flats and beautiful houses being pulled down to be replaced by the same.  The population is far too big and unsustainable and it just seems to be getting bigger daily.  I used to be able to get a doctor’s appointment within 24 hours of ringing the surgery.  Now I have to wait a week.  The traffic is ridiculous, the High Street is nothing but Barber shops, coffee shops and takeaway food outlets.  Croydon, where I have the misfortune to work, is an absolute dump with boarded up shops and so much crime.  I’ve seen people with knives during the day, let alone at night.  I work there and feel unsafe at all times.  I’ve seen people grabbing goods and walking out of shops laden with goods they haven’t paid for and no one  does anything.  The thieves know the police won’t do anything so they carry on.  Public transport is far too expensive and unreliable.  Go to other European countries where the trains are reliable, clean, not overcrowded and cheaper.  We want to leave the area as  soon as we can. I just know the fields and woods near our house will soon sprout a whole load of flats and I don’t want to see that, nor do I want to think about where the poor wildlife will go.   If we could, we’d leave the country as we really feel it has gone to the dogs.

Born and raised in London lived on a fairly nice road until 2020 when LTNs were implemented  and consequently roads  like ours have suffered from an  of  increase volume of traffic. LTNs created some priveleged quiet areas and others took the displaced traffic! Social injustice ! Community split 

Lived in London for over 40 years but the increased crime, lack of visible policing, horrendous traffic, expensive and unreliable transport system, constant roadworks and now 20 mph enforcements I feel like everywhere is grinding to a halt. For such a beautiful and cultural capital the Mayor and City Hall needs a large kick up the backside. You are ruining London. Invest in our transport system before clogging up our roads and get more police on the ground to make us feel safe. 

The top issues for me are unregulated building and rental market, which means it's the wild west for anyone trying to navigate either, the ever increasing population (which now hinders my ability to enjoy living in my city on a weekly basis as nothing is ever available or else overwhelmed by swarms of people), the ghastly traffic everywhere, which is desperately unsafe and grossly unsanitary, and the fact that I no longer feel safe, even in my own neighbourhood. The city has changed radically post-Covid, and not in pleasing ways. These seemingly small things chip away at the meagre joy you might have and make being here feel more like a punishment than a privilege. Add to this that it's more expense than ever to live here, and one begins to feel like the subject of a farce. 

Before high rise blocks went up, the locals all asked about the impact of current infrastructure. The local authority did not pay that any attention. High rises galore went up, and the local tube station is overwhelmed with people, the train station is still in need of upgrade and at weekends everywhere is crowded. It is awful. I feel I cannot breathe in one of the 2 local high streets. But I am sure the economy in that area is doing great for a few, and the mass of visitors. Those who move into the new tower blocks soon discover a local authority that does not respond or work very well. Luckily, the other high street has not yet fallen prey to a rapid increase of residents. And when it does, they are students. 

My future in London? Even though I have lived in London a long time, I have always had this dissatisfaction with it, because it can never compare to where I was born (Somerset/Avon). That being said, I would love to leave the country, not just London, as it has become too tiring facing such hard hearted people on a daily basis. Why are people so rude to each other? Why are people so self-centred? Why are people so stuck to their phones (walk, cycle and drive looking at phones)? So I can't envision my future here. 

My high street? Have easy access to 2. One has been gentrified to the nth-degree and I walk through but rarely stay in it. It has been made a place for consumers of alcohol and food. People in the area have to face people pissing (&worse), drug taking, and vomit on their doorsteps. Community has been lost. But there is a constant party for some. The other high street, I will spend a little more time in, the park has been opened up made safer, has a good mix of places to eat at a variety of price points. It does have a serious issue with open drug taking and homelessness. 

We have been encouraged to travel in healthier ways and that's fine. I avoid tube because it is so expensive; there seems to be so many different "daily caps" for so many different situations. I spent £30 on TfL travel alone one weekend. The Mayor has tinkered with buses and they are super unreliable now; frequency can be so bad you wonder if the bus you are waiting for is running, or they terminate early which seems to be happening more often. So use of TfL services is frustrating. So I have started to cycle for some journeys but with roads so potholes you get shaken about so much that your body feels like you just used a jackhammer. I can understand why people just drive, the alternative is not really working.  So right now, a job that I can walk to would be ideal. A good place to work is one I feel safe in and is not institutionally racist.

Something needs to be done about the crawling traffic. Understandable during the day and by schools and houses but utterly pointless on a main rd at 10pm or at other less busy times for both public and private transport. 

Speed up the traffic, it is losing our time and money. 
Reduce the crime in our society, such as robbery. Educate the people, if we are facing crime, what kind of self defence we can do. 
Provide bonus scheme if a normal people catch a robber.
Prohibit CBT licence drivers (L plate) to drive in london when peak hours, and central london. 

Build more bus lanes. The city is choking with cars and vans. There is plenty of cycle routes. Get the buses moving without getting coaght up in car traffic. 

Work from Home is great if you are a parent with young children. It also cuts down the working day by having no journey times and saves money on both food and transport
However  there are problems caused by this such as empty offices dead sandwich bars pubs and restaurants 

But most importantly is the lack of face to face communication 

There needs to be a balance 

Maybe 3 days in the office and 2 at home ?