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• Question by: Lord Bailey of Paddington
• Meeting date: 16 March 2023

Shaun Bailey AM: Good morning to both of our guests. Can I start with you, Lord Hendy. On 7 March [2023] you announced a consultation on reducing the size of LLDC from December 2024. It was also confirmed that LLDC would maintain its status with a reconstituted board and a governance structure and a return of planning powers to the constituent boroughs. What were the objectives behind these changes?

• Question by: Caroline Russell
• Meeting date: 16 March 2023

Caroline Russell AM: Lyn, last time we spoke at the Budget and Performance Committee meeting before Christmas [2022], we established that the LLDC heat network runs on gas. It cannot meet the Mayor’s climate targets and it opens residents up to catastrophic energy bills. We discussed that you somehow have to get rid of all the gas and get heat pumps in to shift all that power to low carbon. I was very glad to hear you tell Assembly Member Cooper just now that Equans has started on the installation of air-source heat pumps. What analysis was done to rule...

• Question by: Unmesh Desai
• Meeting date: 16 March 2023

Unmesh Desai AM: Good morning, Lyn. Good morning, Lord Hendy. If I could ask you, Lyn, how can the return of the planning powers to local boroughs be used as an opportunity to change the way that local residents can be engaged in planning earlier in the process?

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 16 March 2023

Len Duvall OBE AM: On the Stadium, since you have both been in position, we have stabilised the costs around the Stadium. We understand more about what the Stadium can do or cannot do. You have conversations with all the tenants and particularly you have opened up a relationship with the anchor tenant, but there are still legal issues and they are about the contracts that you have between your good selves. What is the future of the Stadium? What does that look like over the coming years? What are the potential options around that? Could you just give us...

• Question by: Keith Prince
• Meeting date: 16 March 2023

Keith Prince AM: A couple of things to start with, Lord Hendy. It is good to see you again. You were saying that you were astonished earlier. Do you honestly believe that such prime real estate where the [Olympic] Games were held would remain fallow even now? If we look around where we are here, if we look at Docklands, Canary Wharf, none of those had the Olympic Games, from memory, but they have all been very successfully developed out.

• Question by: Len Duvall OBE
• Meeting date: 16 March 2023

Len Duvall OBE AM: Let us go back to real estate around the Stadium. Most of that would have been part of the open space and parkland. There are no options and nothing under your plans that you would build on that open space element that is included in your development area.

• Question by: Emma Best
• Meeting date: 16 March 2023

Emma Best AM: Thank you, Chair, and good morning, both. Liz, we were just hearing from [Lord] Peter Hendy [CBE] then that Mayoral Development Corporations (MDCs) “get things done”. According to the [Sir Bob] Kerslake Review [ of GLA Group Housing Delivery ], the OPDC “has not delivered any housing directly”. Is this something that you think is now a position that has changed and you feel more confident about delivery?

• Question by: Hina Bokhari
• Meeting date: 16 March 2023

Hina Bokhari AM: Thank you, Chair. Liz, I was really pleased to hear that you are encouraging the right kind of developer. What measures are you putting in place to make sure that you are not working with developers who may have had a disregard for leaseholders, people who have suffered as a result of the building safety crisis?

• Question by: Elly Baker
• Meeting date: 16 March 2023

Elly Baker AM: Thank you, Chair. My questions are to Liz about delays to HS2 and how they might impact OPDC. Three years ago, the Mayor said that, “There are ambitious plans in place to deliver a significant number of new homes and jobs at both Old Oak Common and Euston. I am confident these can be delivered, even if there are delays to the first phase of HS2.” Are you confident now that the start date has moved from 2026 to a window of 2029 to 2033?

• Question by: Siân Berry
• Meeting date: 16 March 2023

Siân Berry AM: Thank you very much, Chair, and my question is to David. I am sorry to say that I have witnessed from you what I think is quite a poor attitude to community engagement. I have been copied in to this letter, also to you, from Professor Jennifer Robinson, who is Professor of Human Geography at University College London (UCL) and I agree with a lot of what it says. The professor raises concerns about the approach by OPDC to community engagement and says there is a need for the organisation to “repair relations” with community groups, including...