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• Question by: Fiona Twycross
• Meeting date: 06 February 2015

Fiona Twycross AM: I am going to shift the question a little bit away from housing. Obviously, we all recognise the need for housing, but there is a danger that we create a false dichotomy between the use of land for housing and the use of land for other purposes. Does the Plan recognise and deal with the tension between the need to provide land for housing and the need for all other uses including employment and infrastructure?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 06 February 2015

Jenny Jones AM: On this substantive issue, I am very concerned that you are actually releasing too much industrial land because the vacancy rate on industrial land has actually halved in the past 15 years and is now lower than retail vacancies. I am concerned that you are talking about surplus land when, actually, it is not surplus because small businesses still need to be near centres of population and they still need to be near town centres. I just wonder how much research you have done on this.

• Question by: Steve O'Connell
• Meeting date: 06 February 2015

Steve O’Connell AM: First of all, I would like to thank you, Sir Edward, and your officers for the work involved in bringing forward these alterations. I note your continuing protection of the environment and green spaces and I am encouraged by your comments around self-build. I know my colleague Andrew [Boff AM] will turn to the housing question a little bit later. I would like to pick up on two points, one around parking standards and another around the first time that community pubs have been commented on in the London Plan. On the parking standards, I noticed that...

• Question by: Tony Arbour
• Meeting date: 06 February 2015

Tony Arbour AM: You will have heard already this morning that the principal concern of the Assembly relates to change of use, particularly change of employment use. One of the areas where the Assembly has actually right across the board sought to encourage the Mayor to be more muscular, even than his natural inclinations might have taken him, related to the [Sharon] Bowles [Member of the European Parliament for South East England] reforms, which have already been referred to, on the loss of office space. In your answer, you have talked about that and you have talked about the changes...

• Question by: Onkar Sahota
• Meeting date: 06 February 2015

Dr Onkar Sahota AM: Sir Edward, should we expect to see more parks and other pieces of green open space being built upon?

• Question by: Joanne McCartney
• Meeting date: 06 February 2015

Joanne McCartney AM: I wanted to ask about waste facilities, in particular incineration. It appears to me that the FALP seems to be going backwards on the green handling of waste by making incineration more likely. Can I just ask if that is your view? Will the Mayor commit to reviewing the carbon intensity floor (CIF) so that it will rule out all mass-burn incineration in the future?

• Question by: Andrew Boff
• Meeting date: 06 February 2015

Andrew Boff AM: Sir Edward, in reaching a decision about whether or not plans work, we need data. We do not seem to have gathered data about how many family properties are being built above the second floor. Therefore, it is a little difficult then to monitor the performance of the London Plan’s housing targets with regard to what is, as far as I am concerned, a very important piece of information.

• Question by: Nicky Gavron
• Meeting date: 06 February 2015

Nicky Gavron AM: Edward, I just wanted to follow up on the implications, really, of what you were saying about waste and incineration. One of the things we like about the London Plan is that it is bringing forward recycling targets. London has been performing very badly and is lagging behind other cities and of course other international cities. If you look over the mayoralty, the amount of waste going to incineration from London has doubled. Recently, you gave permission to Beddington, which we did not want you to do, for a 300,000-ton incinerator. If you replace Edmonton, you will...

• Question by: Kit Malthouse
• Meeting date: 17 December 2014

Kit Malthouse AM: I just wanted to raise the issue of Wormwood Scrubs with you. You helpfully wrote to me yesterday ‑ following quite a lot of emails from alarmed residents of that area who have an interest in the Scrubs ‑ outlining the Mayor’s commitment to protecting it. However, could you just explain to us, if there are no designs on the Scrubs as such, why does it need to be included in the boundary of the MDC?

• Question by: Navin Shah
• Meeting date: 17 December 2014

Navin Shah AM: Chair, the same issue: Wormwood Scrubs. The campaigners and Wormwood Scrubs Charitable Trust are aware of explanation given by the Mayor and the negotiations you had. We have a letter, the Assembly Members have a letter from yesterday from the Trust, who maintain that they still have grave concerns about the inclusion of the Scrubs in MDC area. Is the message now therefore from you that you are not prepared to budge to the campaigners?