Have your say on the draft London Budget for 2023-24

I want the police to funded to do their job of policing.

I want the fire brigade to be funded to their job of emergency services and protection from fire.

I do NOT want my tax money to be used to distract them from those jobs with concerns, regulations and harassment about whether they are or are not doing their jobs in accordance with some "net zero" political scheme. I want these essential services to do whatever it takes to do their jobs efficiently and effectively - and having "net zero" inflicted on them will make things worse.

I strongly support the Mayor’s pioneering use of climate budgeting and his plans to expand ULEZ.  More rapid electrification of transport, promoting of walking, cycling and public transport, and encouraging retrofitting of buildings and climate friendly urban planning is also encouraged!

YOU NEED TO GET A GRIP OF PUBLIC CHARGING PRICES - I live on a council estate I’ve tried to do the right thing and get an electric car which is needed to get to my mums in the south coast because the trains are expensive and unreliable. 
 

As a council tenant I am paying 4/5 times the amount as house owners… Is this the intended outcome? 

Dear Mayor of London,

I kindly ask to allocate a portion of your budget to train 50 residents, from each borough and wards FIRST AID FOR KNIFE ATTACKS LEVEL 2 (Including shop owners, parents and bus drivers) 

Best regards,

I think the Mayor should be cutting costs like anyone has to do in a cost of living crisis, so no increase in Council Tax would help a lot. Congestion Charges should be scrapped to help business which relies on getting about London. It’s just a way to make money for the GLA, whilst putting up prices for the people of London. We’re too small a country to affect climate change, so we should scrap Net Zero targets and encourage scientific solutions to reduce carbon emissions without leaving us poorer. Drop the ideology and start thinking in a more business like way.

Not sure why Khan is having a public consultation. As per his previous efforts all he'll do is ignore the submissions that he doesn't agree with, cherry-picking the few that align with his agenda.

my father lives in Essex and his 93 year old mother lives in Havering. He regularly visits her by car as one would expect, which is less than a 15 minute drive. The public transport options are impossible. The country lanes are not suitable or safe to cycle. 

Sadiq wants to charge him £12.50 to visit his eldery mother several times a week unless he upgrades his vehicle? Does he get to have a say in this or is he being taxed without representation? It's absolutely disgusting and a shamless money grab. Nothing less than what we have come to expect from this desperate mayor. Control of London should be handed back to central government as 1 man shouldn't have all that power to dictate over people like this. Stop ULEZ expansion. 

Social housing bit mentions the issues with rising costs of building and production materials. If this is an excuse to build less social housing, then make it so that the one that gets build does not get sold off.

Make it so everything that gets built goes into getting rent out to those who are in desperate need. Selling that home to someone who can already afford it will make a negligible difference compared to being able to flexibly rent it.

If you want to tackle climate crisis, the best place to start is by eliminating the wastage. Do something that would require landlords to better insulate the homes they rent.

The current level of insulation is a joke. You spend a small fortune daily to heat your home, only for the heat to leave your home in a matter of hours. 

I'm heating only a single room out of a couple up to a "leisurely" point of 15*C, because heating the whole flat would require quadrupling the energy use.

However, I can only wonder how many others are doing so, especially ones with more people in the household, like children. I'd imagine those homes are bleeding the energy into the winter air like a river.

Imagine how much energy (a lot of which is produced by fossil fuels) would be saved if this city would have proper insulation standards.

The ULEZ expansion is a great idea and I fully support it.

More bike lanes and cycle friendly road policies would be very welcome.

London's green spaces are priceless; I don't know if it is a mayoral issue, but the increasing commercialisation of Hampstead Heath and Regents Park is very frustrating.  The FT events/Frieze events etc all result in a huge number of HGVs and generators polluting these wonderful green spaces.  Surely better venues could be found, such as the South Bank, to host these events, rather than taking over green spaces that are supposed to be tranquil peaceful havens in a busy city?

I also agree with the comments below that our air needs to be cleaner. Our roads need to be slower and safer.

Stop ULEZ expansion! We all know it's a stealth tax! It will only destroy us financially! Khan is a scum, a hypocrite! He' s always blaming the government for not helping Londoners, when he's the one destroying us! Never Khan again in an office! 

Our public services desperately need investment. Our public service workers need a pay rise. Our bus services need to be better so people can get to work quickly and cheaply. Our energy bills need to come down. Our young people need safety, community and opportunity. Our homeless people need to be housed. Our police need to be able to properly investigate and prosecute low-level crimes. Our older and unwell neighbours need better social care. Our families need more affordable childcare. Our air needs to be cleaner. Our roads need to be slower and safer. Our small business need relief with their costs to keep trading. Our arts and culture venues need more visitors. Our pubs and restaurants need more trade. Good luck with all of that Mr Khan.

A budget needs allocated to both the Redbridge and Havering boroughs in controlling excessive car noise that is resulted from illegally modified exhausts. Noise just goes through the roof and there is nobody to deal with the ongoing problem. This just totally affects the quality of life all-round. 

There needs to be strict police enforcements for stopping cars in these boroughs where they have cars that are illegally modified. 

Another matter that also needs addressing is to put up smoke booths so that town centres can control second-hand smoking which is affecting our public health. It's good there is a smoking ban indoors, but more needs to be done so there needs to be a budget in having more smoke-free places when going shopping.

Talks about helping Londoners yet puts up council tax and transport fares!

Wants to improve transport yet is building huge blocks of flats on the station car parks in outer London making it harder for people to access the stations and overloading the local areas.

Talks about making the city greener and lowering pollution yet is closing roads and reducing the number of lanes thus increasing traffic on main roads and increasing pollution.

20mph zones are fine during the day or by schools etc but utterly pointless at night when the roads are clear, also constant switching between 20 & 30 zones confusing, no doubt to catch people on speed cameras.

No mention of tackling cyclists and how they flout the laws by jumping red lights, riding on pavements or outside cycle lanes etc with no consequences.

Also whats he doing exactly with this £6.9bn to build homes, seems its developers not the government/GLA building anything?

How about cutting the overpaid tube workers on £50k plus and using some of that to improve services.

Why no mention of his inflated staff and waste of the GLA building as he's spent millions on another building instead of cutting unnecessary staff

My concerns, not addressed in the draft Budget, include protection of housing developments which are increasingly being lost to make way for NIMBYist concerns. 

This is in direct response to a comment quoted in the email we got sent reminding us to comment. London faces a chronic housing shortage, which is driving up our rents and house prices. Of course if you are privileged enough to own a house that’s great for you, but for the rest of us mere mortals, it means we’re really struggling as costs rise from every direction. 
 

The only way to solve a housing shortage is to build more homes. But every single proposed development of any size seems to be blocked by myriad vexatious “concerns” from “locals” (homeowners who have a vested interest in continuing the shortage, to keep prices rising). They always accept we need new housing, and yet always think it should be built elsewhere. The mayor needs to ensure that councils which don’t build enough homes are penalised, perhaps through budgetary losses.

Rather than investing so much in policing how about spending money on youth centres, mental health and tackling poverty as these are better crime prevention methods. 

make transport affordable and more inline with the costs in other European cities 

Transport policies need to focus on decreasing journey times for the majority of Londoners. In particular average bus speeds need to be increased significantly to encourage more people to use the bus. That means more bus lanes (and certainly not the conversion of bus lanes to physical cycle lanes such as the disastrous C9 in Chiswick mentioned by David Tarsh), a movement to higher speed bus services with reduced stops (such as the excellent 607 on Uxbridge Road), the elimination of 20mph limits on all major roads and an overall reduction in the number of cars on the roads. Extending the provision of Freedom Passes to a wider range of Londoners should be a priority. We should not lose sight of the fact that lower traffic speeds result in more pollution because of the congestion they cause. Extending the ULEZ is a purely political gesture which will achieve little benefit in terms of air pollution and will cost many Londoners dearly because it will force them to replace their cars.

Part of the problem is there are simply too many cars and traffic speeds for motorists are never going to increase unless we reduce their number. Even when not in use cars clog up the roads and cause congestion. A scheme to provide Freedom Passes to all households which do not have a car registered at their address could help to resolve this issue. What we need is a broad brush plan with some simple measurable targets and a slogan we can unite behind. How about 30:30:30 by 30. 30% higher bus speeds, 30% fewer cars, 30% more Freedom Passes by 2030? 

I'm new to this conversation, but have already noticed a lot of comment against cycle lanes. I'm a cyclist. I was a driver. I won't comment on the pros and cons of cycle lanes in particular localities - everyone here knows their own area best, and I don't know yours. What I'd rather say is that my journey from car to bicycle has done me nothing but good. I had a car and drove it in London for around 15 years. When it broke down I decided not to replace it. The decision was based on the cost of running it, but the benefits I enjoyed were so much more than cost. The level stress which dissipated from my daily life was precious beyond the savings I made financially. No more traffic jams, no more angry drivers hooting, no more clock-racing journeys held up at traffic lights, no more tyres to replace, no more parking places to find, no more MOT to organise, no more insurance to haggle over, no more car washing to do (that's a fib - I never washed it), no more anxious rain-soaked windows to peer through to avoid pedestrians, no more huge lorries to avoid, no more AGH moments when you see the Congestion Charge sign coming up, no more lanes to get into, side roads to get out of, cyclists to avoid killing. Glorious. I recommend it to all of you who use a car and have the choice not to. Break out of car prison. It's great out here.

I am disabled and step free access is woefully lacking across the entire Estate and Services.