please empty your brain below
In the L.B.Sutton, for example, the Local Plan proposes building on the Green Belt, on Metropolitan Open Land, on playing fields, on recreation grounds, on allotments, and on public open spaces.
This is just one small borough. The same is being repeated all over London. Any mayoral candidate who talks about building huge numbers of houses will be simply piling pressure on London's green spaces and losing many of them for ever.
Not sure about the "Overground string rail system" - is that a technology more advanced than rubber band powered?
I normally think the Greens can be a bit out there in terms of thinking things through to the end, but Sian's apparently the only one that's looked at the power the Mayor *actually* has over housing and proposed setting a up new HA. Which is a pretty good idea, even if it's just contracting out to MOAT et.al.
Zac seems to have "promised" the most things that will happen regardless of who's elected, which is pretty smart campaigning even if it's intensely irritating to those that know better.
I can't in good conscience vote for any of them. Neither can I see myself voting for a far right party (my family is not British). I don't like Galloway.
This leaves me with... Zylinski? Lee Harris? Sophie Walker? Oh well.
apart from the green party, they all sound exactly the same.
money controls london, not the Mayor.
the illusion of democracy....
The only one of the big 4 that makes any sense to me is Sian Barry, and I can't see several of those pledges being realistically achievable (mainly the ones about switching all buses and taxis to zero emissions, closing City Airport and re-prioritising junction improvement schemes). Free transfers from rail to bus is a great idea and one implemented in many US & Canadian cities. Not sure what they mean by flat fares... no peak/off-peak or no zones or no young persons / old persons / unemployed discounts?
RayL | 06.04.16 - 8:03 a.m. Spot on!
Read the story of Chicago's Meigs Field and mayor Richard Daley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meigs_Field#Demolition_and_closure
Now there was a mayor with power - it only takes some bulldozers!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Tempelhof_Airport
Not that London City could be closed, it is too convenient for all the City and Canary Wharf fat cats.
Heathrow is where it is, there are plenty of places where there isn't Heathrow - perhaps all the objectors could move to a new Richmond Island, if there are so keen for everyone else to have an inconvenient trip to an estuary airport, then I'm sure they wouldn't mind either.
It's the reason I'm against Sadiq his fare freeze prosopsals don't stand up, it will cost a fortune and the only way to fund it is to slash capital spending on the tube. Not a problem if he only plans to be one term Mayor and use it as career stepping stone, but the result will be collapsing tube system if the funds to renew the Piccadilly and Bakerloo are not forthcoming.
To pretend that shutting the cable car, and finding efficiencies will fund it all is the height of dishonety. Whether you love or hate the Cable car, the money has already been spent and it makes a mild profit of half a million a year. TFL are already wringing out every efficiency possible to cope with cuts in Central government grants. The BUS system alone has moved from an £800 million deficit to almost breaking even.
If the Mr Khan is not going to raid the capital budget and the emergency reserves then the only other source of cheaper fares is all the extra fare concessions that are offered in London, such as Free children travel and before 9.30 travel for OAPS or even free travel on trains or tubes.
He either means to carry out such an expensive bribe and thus Londoners will end up paying for it one way or another or oops he'll say those evil Tories wont increase the London Transport subsidy to pay for my manifesto pledge and so it can't happen.
Sorry for the rant but this really annoys me.
So where is she going to find the money to build 50,000 council homes?
I love these polititians who make promises knowing they won't win anyway and therefore will never have to deliver.
There are only two candidates that can win and therefore the only ones to be taken seriously - Zac and Sad, you takes your choice.
""Continue the Olympic Games precept to build 50,000 council homes to rent"
"So where is she going to find the money to build 50,000 council homes?"
By continuing to levy the precept - the extra money ((£19pa for band D) we have been paying every year since 2006 to pay for London's £900m contribution to the Olympics. Pidgeon's proposal is that instead of ending this year as intended, it should continue to be levied, but now be used for housing.
... and the Green Party is one of them!!!???
Sheesh, well I never. Who could see that one coming???
The great irony is, you don't even need to vote Green to get the 'hierarchy' of London's road networks remodelled to put vehicular transport "at the bottom." There's already plenty of [typically] Labour controlled boroughs doing perfectly well at screwing up any sort of travel by road without any need for any other party's help :(
Actually this sort of appeals to me. I've come to believe that the less the Mayor does the better.
Still at least it's a better choice than the last election when Labour's failure to remove Ken from the ballot once his dodgy connections made him unelectable left us with four more years of Boris.
You're right, because the hierarchy mentioned by the Green party candidate is the universal model accepted by the modern-day transportation/urban planning science community.
In fact, Londoners vote using a supplementary vote system for the mayor - they can vote for a first and second preference, so supporters of e.g. the Green Party candidate, can make known their party of preference before voting for one of the two likely main contenders. (of course there can be unintended consequences if the left-wing or right-wing first preference vote is spread too thinly...)
There is also a 'top-up' supplementary system for members of the London Assembly, which allows for more diversity of views than in a standard (English) election.
dg writes: oops, sorry, fixed, thanks.
Maybe if you voted for what you believe in rather than try to hide in the flock, we might get somewhere.
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