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• Question by: Murad Qureshi
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

Can I just go back to Neale's comments. I am glad to hear that local authorities are looking at areas where there is already the social infrastructure to provide additional housing. It strikes me, though, that the last time the capacity study was done at the GLA, during the first term, the local authorities in the south-west, where there is the infrastructure, the roads and what have you, got off lightly. I am talking about Richmond upon Thames and Kingston upon Thames. It seems to me, when I go through those parts of town, the infrastructure is there to accommodate...

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

It is good that we have got an opportunity to make a step change in the quality of development, particularly in affordable homes, with this Strategy and the Mayor's new powers. We also, as Assembly Members, had a rather robust conversation over lunch with the London Housing Corporation. That was about the very great degree of variance there seems to be at the moment between the housing management standards and the estate management standards - the neighbourhood management standards - between existing housing associations, amongst which there has been a great balkanisation; there are 500 or so housing associations in...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 14 June 2006

The good students of Malmesbury School might be interested to know that out of all this chaos we have a bunch of Assembly Members quizzing the man who is responsible for delivering the Olympic Games in London. By the time they are voters, the Olympics will be finished. The area of the Olympics will be regenerated, and there will be many jobs there. Mr Higgins has already said that he wants to put other people on the spot to make sure it is not just the Olympics delivering all of these benefits, but it is the whole regeneration of the...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 08 September 2005

Absolutely. I am aware of the Canary Wharf initiative, and I laud it. It is absolutely fantastic, and it is the kind of thing we want. We work very closely in north London with The College of North West London to try to look at the skills that will be needed in that area. Therefore, through the LSC and the further education colleges, it is absolutely essential that we work out the skills that are needed. That is what happened in Canary Wharf. They worked out the skills that were needed, and then were able to provide the training for...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 08 September 2005

I think it would be very helpful if that were done, but also, if something which is accessible to local businesses who are not politicians like us ' who understand all these convoluted politician-speak reports ' something which they could understand and could understand how they could have access to tendering and contracts and get some of the benefits which they have been promised out of the Olympics. I hope that is possible, as well. The second question, then, is about employment training in the construction industry. My understanding is that there has already been quite a bit of work...

• Reference: 2004/0196-1
• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

How are you going to ensure that those living in Thames Gateway will have the necessary skills to access more of the new jobs created there? .

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

Perhaps I should declare that I was at that partnership board as well, and I welcome the work that you are doing on this. But my constituents in east London can, I think, be forgiven for being a bit cynical about regeneration in the area, because it is all very well to get investment bankers there, but very few local kids become investment bankers and the arrival of investment bankers very often, by driving up the land values, forces out SMEs in traditional old workshops, which have been a classic leg-up for people in east London in the past. They...

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

Business start-ups and SMEs set up, particularly by minority ethnic communities in east London, have been pretty fundamental in the last 20 years or so, and yet, if I look through East Ham, West Ham and Tower Hamlets, the sort of premises they used to occupy have disappeared. The ones that are now available are unaffordable. How are the LDA and the other partnerships going to intervene in that?

• Question by: John Biggs
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

• Question by: Meg Hillier
• Meeting date: 17 March 2004

If the LDA is the agency, what resources are you going to need to be able to deliver?