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• Question by: Bob Blackman
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

Two quick areas I would just like to raise: how are you going to address the need for new affordable housing for families when we have already got a surplus of one bedroom properties at affordable level, and a large element of the developments that have taken place have been two bedroom properties? In actual fact the demand now in London is very much for family housing, both for affordable housing for rent but also housing that can be bought by families.

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

So, that is not a mark of success is it, by any measure?

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

Well those planning consents have been implemented, Neale, then. They cannot possibly be in the pipeline if they are already being built, can they?

• Question by: Bob Neill
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

My apologies for not having been in at the beginning of the conversation, Neale; I was actually in the Thames Gateway meeting some residents in Bexley earlier on. I just wanted to take up one of the points that was raised and that is this: the clear view of all the partners, both in London Thames Gateway and in Essex and in Kent, is that you will only be able to deliver sustainable communities in the Gateway if the infrastructure is put in before the housing. There seems to be no evidence of that. Given that Crossrail is likely to...

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

Just coming back to the issue of the figures for housing, I think it would have been useful to have had someone from the Housing Corporation explain those figures because I have had difficulties getting some idea of what their methodology is on that front and it will undoubtedly become an annual political football. Coming to what I wanted to raise with Neale: the unimplemented planning permissions. Where do you think the explanation lies for that? Is it the five year limit on planning permissions? Is there not the building capacity to build them out? It would be useful, given...

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

Sorry, can I stop you there. There are new powers for boroughs to monitor them, but there is no new money for boroughs to do it. Without the funding it is very difficult to see how boroughs can monitor Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs).

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

It is very good to see a clear commitment in the Housing Strategy, not just to deal with these issues of supply/quantity, but also address issues of quality. Perhaps one issue that Dee has left out of that long list of points about diverse supply etc, is the question of lifetime homes. Now, there was very clear statement in the London Plan, and it is here again in the Housing Strategy, that we would like basically to see all new homes meet a lifetime home standard and we would like to see a significant number - 10%, I think -...

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

No, but the Mayor can make representations to the Government to try and explain that there is no point having a strategy that says, 'Boroughs will look after HMOs and will monitor them' if there is no money in order for them to do it. So, what I am asking is that the Mayor is much more proactive in pushing central government for local government's case, for them to get some more money, and working much more in tandem with boroughs, rather than at the moment there tends to be certainly a perception that the Mayor is one side and...

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

My concern about this whole thing - the overall concern - is that I think it is very easy to say, 'We have decided that boroughs should do (a), (b), (c) and (d)'. It sounds good: 'We will therefore say we will have 50% of this and 70/30 mix', but if boroughs do not have the money in order to do this, there is no point saying, 'The Mayor's Strategy is that the boroughs will deliver', because the boroughs really do need money in order to deliver. With the best will in the world they cannot do it if they...

• Question by: Dee Doocey
• Meeting date: 24 October 2007

Surely the emphasis ought to be on providing better accommodation for older people, which might persuade them to move on from under-occupying homes - one in four homes in London are under-occupied - and therefore trying to free up at the top, which will eventually free up at the bottom, for the hostels? There does not seem to be too much emphasis on that. I am concerned that nothing that you have said has led me to believe that the problem is going to be addressed, of people with mental problems in hostels not having appropriate support and accommodation.