Planning London’s future

The tube should be more accessible to electric wheelchair users many stations are not accessible and some that say they are, have the train floor slightly higher than ghe platform that makes it difficult yo board train at a slow speed.
Many shops and buildings even new ones have either a step at the doorway, heavy doors to enter while manoeuvring wheelchair or the rails or aisles are so close together I cannot maneuver around store. The excuse is often oh its a old building or the victorians built the tube when people like you were kept under the stairs. As one tube worker said to me. It is possible to retrofit a lift in most places, have door access buttons or a call button to request a ramp but the excuse is the cost. So disabled people are excluded and shunned by many in London. Even tfl has shelved plans for many accessibility changes claiming "due to covid". So we are treated as second class citizens. Even down to things that are easy to fix like at merton abbey mills the pathways are full of potholes that the owners refuse to fix and the disabled toilet has had a broken lock since Christmas with a sign saying do not use. If that was the able bodied toilets the watermill cafe would have to close till it was fixed.

After years of living in London it has become a very tiresome city to live in. Trying to enjoy the freedom and convenience of a private car involves more and more 'traps' that fine you for transgressions that are not life threatening to other motorists but petty and unobvious road restrictions designed to extract money. These are mean tactics
You ask how can London be made to include everyone but trying to get around independently one is prevented getting from A to B in one line by closed roads, more 'one way' roads, many more cycle lanes alongside busy roads pinching up space for vehicles, changes to traffic light timings, fewer single yellow lines particularly in the evenings, fewer parking spaces due to restaurants overflowing on the roads etc. etc. 'Traffic is like water' and in the old days it flowed along routes that had been worked over time to be the ones that worked best. Then 'controls' and 'clever ideas' came in and it
has been chaotic ever since - vehicles have also changed in size - too many lorries now in central London during the day and 4 x 4s have reduced streets to 'one way only' Small cars cause less disruption all round - is this not the way forward for a highly populated city like London ?

The West End and the City are vibrant and exciting places to be and properly financed. Locally shopping areas are patchy, badly funded and usually not very welcoming. The dead hand of the local council seems to impact locally, but not in the West End and the City.

Cycle lanes have really helped to reduce car traffic and they make it safe for those of us on bicycles. The congestion charge is also brilliant at discouraging car traffic. Pollution though is still too high and damages the life chances of younger people. When pollution levels reach a high benchmark then maybe the congestion charge could double so that if further discourages cars from our roads.
I can't charge my hybrid car as there are only two points at lampposts in our street of 200 properties. Living in a flat, there is no access to home charging. We need to enforce private bays on residential streets so that only cars parked near charging points are those being charged!
If we are to encourage people to use electric vehicles then the charging infrastructure must improve - on every lamp post in local streets, on garage forecourts, supermarkets, shopping malls etc.
We live in a big city. For those wanting to travel around it, we need more cheap, regular public transport, so we can avoid car usage. All public transport providers, managers of car parks should pursue a not for profit business model. Any excess should be top sliced and paid to the local council for re-investment in transport infrastructure. All public transport should be environmentally neutral.
All Amazon and supermarket home deliveries should be forced to be green, electric vehicles.
Keep lorries and commercial vehicles out of all town centres except for deliveries which should be limited to before 7.00am and after 11.00pm. The £20 voucher scheme in Hounslow following Covid was a great boost to local high street stores and really helped to get people back into local high street shops. This could be introduced annually and paid for by doubling public car park charges. All hospital car parks should be free of charge and monitored to ensure they are only used by qualifying cars.

I like my local area, but ironically after having lockdowns for the last couple of years means that I appreciate the good bits more//the worst bits seem worse as well. Absolutely love the green spaces. My local council has introduced LTNs which means I can cycle safely to Brixton and beyond. I notice a discrepancy between areas which are trying to make areas safer for active transport and those which aren’t, so I guess I end up going more in the direction of the former. I notice people seem to be driving more aggressively & wish that more measures were put in place to slow people down. I notice a need for more trees on London streets & also public toilets. lack of facilities is discriminatory against women in particular and also those with disabilities.

One of My favourite places in London is probably Brockwell Park, the sense of community round the area is brilliant - the gardens are beautiful & the community Garden is excellent and offer events/courses, training, ops for volunteers, a place to explore, learn, grown produce. I love railton road. There is a really nice buzz with the emphasis on safer streets. I also love Brixton Village.

I think public events and community centres (affordable sports facilities access to health swimming, gyms, classes, spaces where people can learn and connect & Libraries are also really important) not many places have town ‘town halls’, any more so an actual physical space where people can connect (in actuality. Rather than just online) are vital. There is a community ‘pavillion’ near me too and festivals such as the Streatham Free Film Festival and FEAST in west Norwood are excellent events through which people can connect. Local Forums on Facebook and wattsapp are good for asking community questions. I think places which make it easy to hold cultural events which are inexpensive or free, work. Places like the South London theatre and Streatham Project Space feel supportive of the local community & inclusive.

Central London and the areas immediately around it e.g. Wapping, Rotherhithe etc mean everything to me because they are so full of character and history. I regularly walk in those areas and can sense what not was like to live there 50, 60 or more years ago. I will travel from where I live in North London just to be in those amazing parts of my home city.
The design of those areas makes my experience better because some parts of it are unchanged and some parts have been radically changed with the terrible poverty that blighted those districts removed. But poverty still casts its shadow over London in different ways and there needs to be more of an effort to support the mayor in what he is trying to do to eliminate the homeless.
The places I have mentioned, plus others such as the wonderful National Gallery are special to me because I try never to forget how fortunate I am having access to them for free. I can (and do) go the gallery and look at a painting by one of the great masters for as long as I want without having to pay a penny. What a privilege.
Places in London can do more to include everyone in them by limiting the corporate taking-over of such places and by bringing the community into them more fully.
In Rotherhithe, for example, there are plaques with detailed explanations of the history of the area and near Wapping there are areas of green which look out onto the river which have put there for the local people to enjoy.
There needs to be more of this and less corporate greed.

The local area has changed little in 60yrs. If I had to change anything it would be planning rules were more firmly managed. The suburban appeal has been blighted by extensions, paving of front gardens and other eyesores detracting from what made the area a desirable location in the early 20th century. Loss of amenity & environment e.g. gardens & trees is hard to reverse. Car ownership has an impact but I am not anti-cars - across London local councils have made it ridiculously hard to keep traffic flowing, in fact causing congestion! No matter how many bus & cycle routes people will not give up the convenience of cars & it is pointless to force it. The increase in elec. vehicles reduces pollution, so it will do more for London to optimise traffic flow. Most Londoners don't drive in routinely - unless they have no choice - the Tube is king. Even with huge capacity free parking, I doubt anyone would want to drive. So best make the traffic flow better for those who have no choice for business.
London's history, architecture, museums/entertainment make it wonderful. Reduce street crime, litter, graffiti. Require occupiers to keep frontages clean & tidy to enhance the image & environment for locals & visitors.
London needs to reflect the history of the nation to the world - I've visited c70 countries - and nowhere do I see a sense of the changing population changing the localities to reflect the community that is not indigenous. We have a most welcoming culture in the UK to immigrants - areas with less tension is where the incoming adapt to the culture that exists, not trying to change the amenity to reflect somewhere else. Parts of London could be in another country, for all that has changed to the community. People are welcome - the removal of what makes London and Britain special is not. We ALL need London to be a place of harmony, safety & peace - to live in & attract tourism to further provide the income to sustain the greatest capital city in the world.

I love the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian houses of London, their streets, terraces and squares. Those buildings have a human scale and are friendly. They are constantly under threat - if not demolished for new glass and concrete high-rises, then by in-fill development and extensions which are modern, blocky and ugly and with no care taken to match their surroundings. There are streets, areas, which I simply weep for when I pass them. We no longer seem to cherish our urban heritage. I hate the way London is going.

I would really like London to let me move there. I've been stuck here over in the United States wanting to move to London for decades. I work remotely and make more than enough to support myself. I have a degree in Mathematics and work in IT. Please let my dream come true. Eric.

Public spaces in London are often extremely ugly. Cities on the continent do this much better. Here in London we get expanses of grey, blank walls, no variation or decoration, too much street clutter. Interventions to spruce areas up are done on the cheap, badly thought out and then suffer from lack of maintenance. Walthamstow, where I live, is particularly bad in this respect. It makes me, personally, miserable, and reflects badly on the community.

Landscape and greenery make a big difference to how welcome I feel in places. The Olympic Park is a good example of mixed use leisure space that is welcoming and successful.

Noise pollution is never addressed. Noise makes me feel unwelcome and unsafe e.g. speakers playing in parks, traffic etc. and London should take steps to take action on noise pollution which is a huge contributor to stress and negative wellbeing.

A lack of integration in communities means that not all are welcome. Local neighbourhoods with multiple shops selling uniform products are not cohesive and welcoming. I love the blend of different cultures but when places become uniform they become exclusive and divided and minorities feel unwelcome.

Design makes a huge difference to how I feel in spaces. As a female, I am usually searching for the safest routes.

Successful areas of urban design I think are the Granary Square development and the Olympic Park where spaces are open, fluid and organic. Areas that are very closed off and angular make me feel unsafe.

Successful communities are those that are blended e.g. Stroud Green in North London where a huge blend of people mix successfully, unlike in very uniform areas of one culture.

London is not only a city for extroverts. London needs to make space for introverts that are free to use e.g. safe and comfortable, quiet, peaceful parks.