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• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 11 July 2001

I think you share the Mayor's view of the efficacy of tall buildings particularly in the key transport nodal points. Obviously there is great sensitivity for those developments in Central London. What role to you think some outer London venues have in terms of acting as host to those type of tall buildings? I represent a constituency in South London where virtually the amount of development has been very limited during the 1990s but there is a great deal of space for that type of development. What role would you see perhaps for South London in fulfilling that Mayoral desire...

• Question by: Andrew Pelling
• Meeting date: 11 July 2001

I suppose it will be an argument for sustainable development if you can get people to commute out in the morning and in the evening to some of these key suburban office sites. I represent Croydon which as you say perhaps has a false pride in terms of its tall buildings, desire for tall buildings, but it is perhaps in many ways a good opportunity to put some of the tall buildings that might fit in within a Manhattan style skyline in Croydon which might not suit necessarily next to St Paul's Cathedral.

• Question by: Eric Ollerenshaw
• Meeting date: 11 July 2001

If I can explain my prejudice in terms of this. First of all the Georgian density, are people talking about density in Georgian times with all those servants crammed into the cellars or are they talking about Georgian density now? But my real prejudice is that the real high densities I have seen are system-built, architect-designed estates, where certain categories of people were ghettoised, and are still ghettoised, in buildings, which when people have got a choice, they get out of as rapidly as possible. Now my worry is if we go down this high-density argument it is those people...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 11 July 2001

I take your point about post war development but I also bear in mind the fact that no architect has ever said that the development they built was quantity led rather than quality led. Every development that has ever been built we have been told is beautiful in its time. The problem is it does not look so fashionable 30 years later. A lot of our densely populated areas are not pleasant to live in. How do you feel we can mitigate overcrowding in a poor environment with green space, particularly given the Mayor's demands that we also produce a...

• Question by: Sally Hamwee
• Meeting date: 11 July 2001

Would it be right, though I do not much like the word myself, to say that one needs to have a holistic approach then?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 11 July 2001

An interesting point about quality and density, which obviously is relevant particularly to the spatial development policies and the proposals in the Towards the London Plan document. I would be interested to know to what extent you have been consulted by the Mayor on the proposals document that we have currently got, Towards the London Plan, what input you have had into that?

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 11 July 2001

This is about tall buildings. First of all, high-rise in my understanding does not always mean high density. Because it depends on the planning. And I would like you to explain that a bit. And the second thing is, how do you respond to the MORI poll that found that most Londoners oppose the construction of high-rise buildings?

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 11 July 2001

How do you respond to the MORI Poll that says that most Londoners oppose the construction of high-rise buildings?

• Question by: Elizabeth Howlett
• Meeting date: 11 July 2001

Lord Rogers, you did mention Roehampton which is in my patch. I am not only a Wandsworth Councillor but a Putney Councillor. I have spent a lot of time in Roehampton and when it was built, I think by Herbert Morison, who had the view - rather paternalistic - that people who were desperate for homes did not mind living in matchboxes on top of each other as long as they could look out on a green aspect. Well I can assure you that really is not so. I have to say that Wandsworth Council has poured money into Roehampton...

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 11 July 2001

That is helpful. One particular issue that concerns us already is the question of how we actually give developers incentives to build the sort of high quality and acceptable new developments that we want which are also affordable. I know that the Urban White Paper, in response to the Urban Task Force Report, argued that we would not get the urban renaissance that we are hoping to see without incentives for developers to build in the cities. What specific incentives should the Mayor be giving developers to build in London?