Funding London’s priorities

Londoners are being priced out of our city because of the ever increasing cost of transportation and housing. London has one of the most expensive public transport in the world, and recent initiatives like expanding the expanding the congestion charge, pay per mile tax for EV cars, tolls on the Silvertown and Blackwall tunnel are just punitive for Londoners simply trying to get around the city they live in.

If the mayor is sincere in trying to cut cost of living and reduce the amount of air polluting vehicles in the city, surely the most logical way is to make public transport affordable and efficient. Currently we have neither - 5.8% increase in tube fares for 2026, constant delays on the TFL network, almost annual tube strikes coupled with more and more ludicrous demands by unions, dirty stations and train carriages marred by graffiti  - I could go on and on about how the transport system actually holds Londoners to ransom rather than working for us to allow us to contribute and drive success for this city!

Social inequality is the root cause of many of the issues we face in London. On just one street, we walk past huge mansions, council estates and people sleeping rough.

The Wealth Inequality Report 2026 details that the wealthiest 0.001% – fewer than 60,000 multimillionaires – now control three times more wealth than half of humanity. The richest 10% of the world’s population own 75% of all personal wealth.

Confronting this core issue requires policies such as a wealth tax. The unsustainable prioritising of short-term profiteering over long-term social wellbeing, including the privatisation of vital public services, must be challenged. After years of brutal cuts, reinvestment in the NHS, Fire Service and Police is desperately needed. Rents/ mortgages need regulation to be affordable, and a commitment needs to be made to use existing sites before building on the green land needed to ensure people and planet can breathe. For whilst social inequality rages on, the planet burns. 

We have the real human intelligence and all the technologies needed to run our societies sustainably. We have empathy and our human connection with each other and our beautiful planet. This is the true source of power; we must plug into it.

Reduce the cost of being  in London by reducing transport costs

How are the under dogs going to influence the budget if they have been stripped of a say for so long that they are drowning in loneliness and micro self-focusing? It’s like asking a drowning man to teach you to swim.

Take them out of their ruts so that they may see over the top of the trenches and recover from the frozen wasteland of isolation; getting ideas focused,see beyond the self and ready to help others.

London is a laughing stock to other European cities why you may ask its not all about big beautiful buildings but how you treat the common man/woman that is just trying to work and pay bills have a decent life unless your earning top pounds in the city its almost impossible normal workers need somewhere to thrive with their children and this is not happening in London

My ? why don't you give people a break on the weekend the high street is dying because a lot of us cannot drive into the city now we going to have to pay per mile and pay the congestion nails in the coffin high street dead for sure thought that electric was good for the environment?

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.