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• Reference: 2002/0668
• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 23 October 2002

When does the Mayor intend to publish his Supplementary Planning Guidance on Sustainable Design & Construction? .

• Reference: 2002/0075-1
• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

Is the Chair of TfL still committed to Orbirail? .

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

That is an encouraging answer. During the first six months of the GLA, when you had your policy commissions, I went to an interesting meeting about what's become the draft London Plan, where Professor Peter Hall and Nicky Gavron spoke about Orbirail and the idea that this would be a key part of your Spatial Development Strategy, that you would have an orbital rail route joining up inner-city areas, and then you would have interchanges between that route and the radial routes coming out from Central London. The phrase that was used was `the city of interchange" because London was...

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

It's proceeding but it doesn't seem to have the prominence in the draft London Plan that other transport schemes have. Orbirail doesn't appear on the London diagram in the draft London Plan; there's a list of major transport schemes with their timing and it doesn't appear on that; in the Options Appraisal document for the Plan, it's not listed amongst the major projects. It's not up there with Crossrail and Thameslink 2000; it is excluded from those even though it looked like the most important of the schemes that the Plan was going to move on.

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

How do you think Orbirail compares for cost effectiveness with the other transport infrastructure schemes that you've got? Crossrail is estimated to cost between £6-£10 billion, whereas Orbirail, if you already have the East London Line extension, is only supposed to cost something like 3% of that amount. In cost effectiveness terms, Orbirail ought to be the top of your list.

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 16 October 2002

Doesn't that make it more important that you put it at the top of your list because, surely, your criteria should be different to the Treasury's? Orbirail is going to benefit people in London, particularly in inner-city areas, whereas Crossrail is largely about people getting from Heathrow Airport to the City. There are far less stops for people in London on the Crossrail plans than there will be on the Orbirail plans. The idea of measuring the benefits of a transport scheme through productivity, is biased against poorer people who are going to earn lower incomes. The Treasury's figures are...

• Reference: 2002/0613
• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

What would the Mayor's response be to someone who claimed that the strength of the Draft London Plan is that everyone can look in it and see what they want to see? .

• Reference: 2002/0479
• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

Will the Mayor publish the input from the GLA family to the SERAS airport capacity study? .

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

Victor Anderson: When you were questioned when you attended the Planning & Social Development Committee about this on 18 July 2002, and Darren Johnson pointed out to you that different people who were involved in drawing up the plan have said very different things about it, you said in reply to him, "The richness of the plan is that people can look in it and find what they want to see". That quotation comes from you. The Mayor: Oh, right, I'd forgotten that. Sorry about that, folks. Victor Anderson: Doesn't that show, --? The Mayor: It was a joke actually...

• Question by: Victor Anderson
• Meeting date: 18 September 2002

We have a sustainability appraisal that doesn't make any attempt to quantify the impact of the plan on any indicators, including the key indicators that the plan sets out of its own measures of success. What we have is a sustainability paper that just checks the language. It's not really a serious sustainability appraisal, is it; surely more work needs to be done on it?