Funding London’s priorities

It’s hard to afford to commute to work, London tube system seems to work less and cost more these days. I can’t afford to enjoy this city anymore, so sad. 

Housing is the most acute problem. When so many of us are spending 50% of our wages on rent, which just line the rich landlord’s pockets, we can’t spend on pubs and local businesses. It’s not normal or ok for professionals to have to share flats. 

Also, we need to absolutely stop local councils sending vulnerable families outside of London in discharging homelessness duties. It is disgusting to move families thousands of miles away from where their friends and families are. 

We urgently need rent control and taxing empty properties. We also need a lot more social housing. London will die when the people that runs it cannot afford to live in it anymore. 

The dire state of the Northern Line needs to be sorted out as a priority. As well as being filthy dirty, the level of graffitti has increased dramatically in recent years. Of particular concern are the windows and glass partitions which have been vandalised with glass etching tools!

There are so many different areas that feel important. Housing and cost feels the most important to me right now. I earn just under 50K and I cannot afford to leave my partner as renting a 1 bed flat in Lewisham for my daughter is currently £1700+ a month. I'm not considering finding a cheaper area as that would mean changing my daughter's school and with her neurodivergency feels like a change too much on top of her parents splitting. 

So I have to stay in an unhappy relationship which over 5 years has been affecting my physical and mental health, to burn out the last 3 years. Every year I struggle that little bit more at work, and I'm terrified I'm going to hit perimenopause soon and lose my job with the strain of it all. 

I know a lot of people have it a lot worse. I just cannot believe that on my salary I can't afford rent in zone 3.

Improving road traffic including new road building and smart traffic control. Nearly all logistics and most trades are depending on road traffic. London has the slowest traffic in Europe. Distances which would take 15 minutes with no traffic easily take 1 hour during day times. 
Everyone pays for it. Cost for businesses and all Londoners is very high. For a trades person getting to a job easily takes 2 working hours out of someone’s day that need to be paid for.

Bus traffic is impacted with average speed below 10mph.

The population is growing. There is a need to fund new road projects, road expansion, improvement and smart traffic management.

child poverty is the most important issue that the mayor should put more budget to tackle,

Housing and homelessness. A unemployed woman age 60 should not live in a very small studio flat with shared kitchen. There should be more small and affordable one bedroom flats for women in London.

London crime rate is increasing and living in London is getting more expensive. There should be more support for those who live in london for many years and loose the job and get back to work easy.

and the last, I think the mayor should be neutral about religion and belief. if the person is elected as mayor of London then he or she should not act like a religious person because the mayor stands for everyone not for any belief or for any minority. The mayor should be supporter of human rights only. 

London’s evening and night-time economy is vital to the city’s cultural life, particularly its music and arts scenes. Yet this ecosystem is being steadily undermined by NIMBYism and the overly rigid application of the Licensing Act, which too often prioritises complaints over cultural value. As venues close, opportunities for emerging artists diminish, and London’s once world-leading nightlife is hollowed out.

At the same time, development is reshaping the city in ways that further erode its cultural fabric. Homogeneous, unaffordable housing is replacing the spaces where culture and community once thrived, catering increasingly to wealth rather than to Londoners themselves. Long-standing communities are pushed out, grassroots venues are displaced, and the social infrastructure that sustains creativity is lost.

The result is a city that risks becoming exclusive, sanitised, and culturally bland... a London designed for the affluent rather than for the diverse communities that have historically driven its artistic innovation. Without urgent action to protect cultural spaces and support a vibrant evening economy, London’s reputation as a global cultural capital will continue to fade.

Rent controls are desperately needed for private tenants. Landlords are taking 2/3 of our monthly salaries and pricing people out of their communities and further away from their workplaces. The quality of privately rented properties is poor, so much damp and poorly serviced, landlords don’t take residents concerns seriously or deal with complaints in a timely manner. It’s no wonder people get stuck in the rental sector and are unable to save to get homes of their own when we spending £2000 or more a month on rent in tiny shoeboxes. People have the right to put down roots in the city and it’s unreasonable for that to be gated to only the very wealthy.

Bring back visible policing - you just don't see police anywhere anymore patrolling or walking around, there's no deterrent for petty crimes and criminals.

Saying that, the police will have to jump through hoops to also win back lost support, what with them arresting innocent, peaceful protesters and people who send tweets...

One thing that gets overlooked constantly (and I don't know how) is London's litter problem. The city is absolutely filthy - it's disgusting. There is garbage everywhere. There needs to be a city wide improvement of bin availability, bin emptying, litter picking, waste collection, street sweeping, and so on. 

Supporting grassroots venues! More funding for music at schools and for grants. 
Better funding for healthcare so it can actually function as right now it is impossible to get any help.

Instead of covering the cost of employees at TFL by raising money from the public, just paying them fair wages in the first place from the money that is already being paid. 
lowering the council tax and making a living wage compulsory if it’s a LIVING wage. Cleaner city (not only centre and rich areas), better safety. Creating proper bike lanes. Not allowing rich investors from abroad to own multiple properties in the city so they are available for people who actually live here…

South east London is desperate for a real tube service. The extension of the Elizabeth line all the way to Dartford is the solution 

Also more housing and better support is needed for this. There needs to be controls and support around rent and service charges. When it seems like a property may possibly be affordable to actually buy, it has outrageous service charges that have no rules on how much they can increase by year on year putting people at risk of losing their property. It is not just making the houses affordable to buy, but continuing to ensure they are affordable. The same goes with renting, the market in London in just a couple of years has skyrocketed and people can’t afford this and shouldn’t be paying thousands for a small room in a shared house 

Better transport, especially in south London. 

The Bakerloo line extension is desperately needed, the new Bakerloop bus does not help solve this problem as it just gets stuck in all of the traffic. More frequent buses are needed and better investment in transport which will in turn help improve the areas and the local economy 

1. I looked very carefully at the parameters of the Mayor's budget, I was looking for a little spend on health, particularly as there are a large population of elderly people living in London who are challenged with some GP'S (not all) who pay their annual subscription as Practice members but clearly need to update their skills & knowledge, as this goes  unchecked since they first qualified 40/50 years ago, their knowledge and skills deteriorate and the population remains sick because of bad decisions which impacts the health system.
2. The seats at the front of TFL busses reserved for disabled people/expectan mothers etc, are far too low, raising the seats up higher would be much more beneficial/ user friendly. I would say every borough is serviced by a good amount of busses, the problem starts when all 3 busses have the same schedule and arrive at the same stop at the same time. This is not effective if people going to work or appointments during peak hours are waiting 10 minutes or more for a bus that's already packed and are left missing train connections.
3. I think I've mentioned this before, the system of policing needs to be more efficient and Met led (I'm speaking about Sir Mark's team) in order to be more effective. "Policing" where every other agency and support teams make up and implement their own strategies is not working, there needs to be a rethink on how best to move forward with one plan and one lead group.

I’m very tired of things like the arts, sports, and culture being the first thing on the chopping block when money gets tight. If London has no investment in the abundance of creativity and cultural diversity within its bounds, then what are we even doing? There’s no point in any of this if things like public art, museums, sports clubs, community centres, charities, workshops, residencies/apprenticeships, community gardens, etc., aren’t available and properly funded. Community hubs need to be a priority again. This is how over time we deal with the wider issue of the far right gaining popularity - creating more spaces for people to meet and understand each other.