Re: Local/devolved elections 2016
 

What power does the mayor of London actually have?

Re: Local/devolved elections 2016
 

Re: Local/devolved elections 2016
 

I think it's a good thing - he's moderate who will appeal to a wide section of the community, and I believe he will a good Mayor.

Re: Local/devolved elections 2016
 

Given the main use of it seems to be keeping house prices high by restricting sustainable development that'd be those who already own property who need it.

Sadly he promised not to build wholesale on the green belt, so that'll potentially be more high quality, well used urban parks and green spaces built on to spare low quality scrub land to ensure the well-heeled have somewhere to exercise their horses.

Meanwhile London's air quality remains abysmal, and London continues to grow, just not as London but as the towns in the commuter belt which now reaches as far north as Yorkshire.

There's 75,000 hectares of green belt inside the M25. A quarter of that would be adequate for a million homes and would ease pressure on Greater London and avoid over-the-top densification there, while simultaneously reducing pressure on the entire south-east.

It's a meaningless designation, which is why it was allowed to double in size over 30 years. It achieves nothing beyond to move 'urban sprawl' from the towns and cities it chokes to just outside of it and in turn force people to commute through it.



---------- Post added at 12:20 ---------- Previous post was at 12:18 ----------

We'll see.

---------- Post added at 12:24 ---------- Previous post was at 12:20 ----------

If he was chosen because of his religion or heritage it is indeed a bad day. You'd hope London would choose the best person for the job. Rather looking forward to when someone's religion and heritage are entirely irrelevant to politics but that's a way away yet.

Fingers crossed identity politics isn't played in the next mayoral election but instead Mr Khan has to sell himself purely on his record. Had his policies been more robustly challenged rather than the hideous and ineffective campaign that was instead fought against him the result may have been different. His claiming TfL didn't need revenue from a fare rise while simultaneously claiming that Goldsmith would increase fares because TfL claim to need the extra revenue was a highlight, as is his announced desire to fire board members from TfL because it's unrepresentative. Straight from the Justin Trudeau school of 'meritocracy'.

I say of course the result may have been different. It probably wouldn't have as that would've depended on how much the electorate vote according to identity rather than policies, which seems to have a way to go too.

Re: Local/devolved elections 2016
 

So we build a gazillion new homes in London for more people to live in and still noboday has anything to say about when enough is enough for the infrastructure London relies upon. Not just transport, but stuff like sewers, utilities, schools, hospitals etc.

It strikes me as odd that when it comes to motorways we're told that building more of them just encourages more people to use them and makes the problem worse. Well if we just carry on building more homes for more people they'll be filled up with more people. What we need isn't a rapidly growing population, what we need is to control population growth and starting with mass uncontrolled migration seems obvious to me.

New migrants may well not own cars but anyone who seriously believes that they aspire to build new lives here, have families etc. yet not own cars is living in cloud cuckoo land. Taking kids anywhere on public transport costs a fortune.

Re: Local/devolved elections 2016
 

I'd imagine the Thames Water sewer upgrades alongside Crossrail are part of the plan to cope.

London's population was 8.6 million in 1939. It's only as recently as last year reached that mark again, so it's a somewhat different set of challenges from much of the rest of the UK.

---------- Post added at 21:07 ---------- Previous post was at 21:06 ----------

I didn't own a car the entire time I lived in London. Public transport, given the traffic, ends up a cheaper solution a lot of the time. :shrug:

Re: Local/devolved elections 2016
 

Well London already need a gazillion new homes which aren't being built. It is depressing the amount of times I see a new housing development only to find out upon a quick Google it's aimed at the high end of the market. There was a case a few years ago, repeated elsewhere, where a new development didn't have a UK marketing office. It was aimed purely at China and other foreign investors. That is the bigger problem.

If you live in London, zone 4 or closer especially, owning a car would be a unneeded expense. However I would say the demographic of immigrants in London differs from elsewhere. It's likely to be a very transient population who come and go. People tend to come down from elsewhere in the UK, or the world, for a decade or so before leaving again. People who start families tend to leave as well.

I don't think London suffers the same issues as the rest of the country. It faces different problems and it almost has to be treated differently. What is good for London may not be what is good for the UK and what is good for the UK may well not be good for London. Immigration is one of those issues, housing is another.

Re: Local/devolved elections 2016
 

230v like every one else :)

Re: Local/devolved elections 2016
 

Your predicted vision for London seems to be a City inhabited, within the inner parts, by the uber rich surrounded by ever increasing numbers of single, people in small flats with no outside space. If they want to have families and luxuries like cars they'll have to move on out and if they want to still work in London they'll have to spend £££££££'s for the privilege of just getting to work. I don't see how that helps London in the long term. It seems to be more the result of a failure to get to grips with the cause of the problem.

Whichever way you look at it, numbers are at the centre of the problem and developments being built with no thought for the future. It wasn't that long ago that 1950's and 60's developments were being razed to the ground - too cramped, no gardens, no community spirit, magnets for anti-social behaviour etc etc etc. Is that what we're going back to?

We need to put the brakes on speculative foreign investment, ensure that a good mix of homes is available and that London doesn't become a giant shanty town with a recreation of Monaco at its core.

We can talk about how many homes need to be built but unless London's population stops growing the number will never be enough, we'll always be playing catch up in terms of the homes and infrastructure needed to support them which is already creaking at the seams coping with existing numbers.

Something drastic needs to be done and soon but simply building ever more, ever smaller, more cramped homes isn't the answer.