London Councils
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
London Councils Minutes of the London Councils Leaders’ Committee held on 15 July 2014 Mayor Jules Pipe chaired the meeting Present: BARKING AND DAGENHAM Cllr D. J. Rodwell BARNET Cllr Richard Cornelius BEXLEY Cllr Teresa O’Neill BRENT Cllr M. A. Butt BROMLEY Cllr Stephen Carr CAMDEN Cllr Sarah Hayward CROYDON Cllr Tony Newman EALING Cllr Julian Bell ENFIELD Cllr Doug Taylor GREENWICH Cllr Denise Hyland HACKNEY Mayor Jules Pipe HAMMERSMITH & FULHAM Cllr Stephen Cowan HARINGEY Cllr Claire Kober HARROW Cllr David Perry HAVERING Cllr Roger Ramsey HILLINGDON Cllr Ray Puddifoot MBE HOUNSLOW Cllr Amrit Mann ISLINGTON Cllr Richard Watts KENSINGTON & CHELSEA Cllr Nicholas Paget-Brown KINGSTON Cllr Kevin Davis LAMBETH Cllr Lib Peck LEWISHAM Cllr Alan Smith MERTON Cllr Stephen Alambritis NEWHAM - REDBRIDGE Cllr Jas Athwal RICHMOND UPON THAMES Cllr Lord True SOUTHWARK Cllr Peter John SUTTON Cllr Ruth Dombey TOWER HAMLETS - WALTHAM FOREST Cllr Clyde Loakes WANDSWORTH Cllr Ravi Govindia WESTMINSTER Cllr Melvyn Caplan CITY OF LONDON Mr Mark Boleat LFEPA - CO-PRESIDENT Lord Andrew Adonis Apologies: CO-PRESIDENT Baroness Joan Hanham CO-PRESIDENT Baroness Sally Hamwee LEWISHAM Mayor Sir Steve Bullock HOUNSLOW Cllr Steve Curran NEWHAM Mayor Sir Robin Wales TOWER HAMLETS Mayor Lutfur Rahman WALTHAM FOREST Cllr Chris Robbins WESTMINSTER Cllr Philippa Roe EQUALITIES Cllr Marie Pye Ex officio (under the provisions of Standing Order 2.2) CAPITAL AMBITION Mr Edward Lord JP OBE CC GRANTS Cllr Paul McGlone In attendance: Isabel Dedring, Deputy Mayor Transport, GLA Jeremy Skinner, Head of Strategic Projects and Policy Evaluation, GLA Jeff Jacobs, Head of Paid Service, Executive Director, Communities and Intelligence, GLA Fiona Fletcher-Smith, Executive Director for Development, Enterprise and Environment, GLA Professor Tony Travers, LSE and London Councils officers 1. Declarations of interest Cllr. Sarah Hayward (Camden, Labour) declared an interest in item one as a member of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. No other interests were declared. 2. Minutes of Leaders’ Committee held on the 11 March 2014 Leaders’ Committee agreed the minutes of Leaders’ Committee held on the 11 March 2014. 3. Welcome to new members The Chair welcomed the new and returning borough leaders attending the meeting. 4. London Infrastructure Investment Plan 2050 The Chair invited Isabel Dedring, Deputy Mayor Transport and Jeremy Skinner, Head of Strategic Projects and Policy Evaluation at the GLA to address the meeting. Ms Dedring began by pointing out that Mr Skinner was the lead officer and then explained that: • In the London Infrastructure Development Plan the Mayor was creating a long-term plan for Housing, Transport, Waste and Energy • It followed the publication of the London 2020 Vision and London Finance Commission (LFC) reports • It was not party political and would go forward whatever the outcome of the general election in 2015 and the Mayoral election in 2016 • A draft version of the infrastructure report would be published at the end of July to inform further discussion and she would be happy to attend a further meeting of Leaders’ Committee to that end and it was envisaged that the final report would be published at the end of the year. Mr Skinner then made a presentation: • The GLA hoped to hold sessions with groups of councils during the consultation period and further discussions with London Councils. • He was grateful for the support of London Councils’ officers and members in helping with the development of the plan, including assessing the overall needs and costs in schools and housing. There were three critical messages to be got across: • The overall magnitude of London’s growth that was anticipated • The need to overcome the fractured delivery of infrastructure so that it worked better for London • How much the plan might cost and how it might be paid for. Growth • The work on the infrastructure plan was timely in that London was about to enter an unprecedented era of growth. It was thought London would exceed its population peak of 1939 as early as next year. During the nineteen-eighties manufacturing industry had declined in London and although there had been an expansion in the ‘knowledge economy’ particularly financial services, population had fallen. However, most predictions now envisaged a period of sustained economic growth in London with population reaching 11,000,000 by 2050. While there would continue to be debate about whether growth was good, it reflected the success of London’s economy in generating jobs. Jobs attracted people and in a global marketplace, there was little to stop London from growing. Preparation was vital. Infrastructure underpinned everything • Combined with the relative backlog in infrastructure investment, increasing expectations, and the need to improve quality of life, even as the city grew, London’s growth translated into significant demand for new infrastructure • While London was relatively dense, it still had significant reservoirs of brownfield land that could be developed with the appropriate remediation, transport and other infrastructure. While the question of the Green Belt would eventually have to be confronted, not until 2025 under current projections at the very earliest - as sites for growth had been identified within London’s boundaries - and possibly much later. Delivery • The delivery of London’s infrastructure was faltering under various systems of infrastructure provision, with a mixture of competitive markets in mobile telephone services, monopolies like BT Open Reach and Thames Water, duopolies like BT and Virgin for NGA fibre broadband, and public services including TfL and the local road network in London. Three ways of bringing greater integration, forward planning and efficiencies were being proposed: o In the absence of any statutory power, the Mayor’s soft power would be used to convene the leaders of these organisations. The initial purpose would be to achieve common understanding regarding London’s growth in more detail – its pace, opportunity areas within the capital, the demographic profile and so on; thereafter to develop more integrated approaches to London’s growth and to deliver projects more efficiently. o Secondly, to tackle the lack of any statutory requirements to deliver infrastructure in a more co-ordinated way. There were various options here, but one would be to lobby for a statutory duty on infrastructure providers and their regulators to have regard for the London Plan and other strategic planning documents. o Third, some of the regulations that prevent the delivery of infrastructure ahead of demand, particularly in energy were being tackling with national Government. Cost • To give a flavour of the content of the infrastructure programmes within the plan, the following was being proposed: o A series of transport investments to support London’s economy, expand the transport network to enable new areas of housing to emerge and improve quality of life. Schemes included, for instance, a significant transformation of the south London rail network so that it resembled more a true Metro service, with higher frequency services o An approach to public realm and green space that considered it in terms of a potential network of green infrastructure providing multiple benefits – recreation, space for walking and cycling, wildlife, shade, flood protection and a generally more attractive environment, which would become increasingly valued as the city continued otherwise to get more crowded and busy. o Relatively modest investment in fibre broadband, 4g, wifi and future ICT technologies such as 5G, on which R&D was underway, to deliver superfast connectivity from mobile and fixed devices wherever you were in London. o Significant investment in our electricity sub-station network, enabled by better regulation, and greater incentives for more local energy production to provide both more energy and greater resilience. • All these and more resulted in a significant bill. The headline was a potential doubling of the overall capital costs, but this was before savings and contributions from fiscal devolution (which would be discussed further in the Governance of Fiscal Devolution report later on the agenda), more integration, the higher economic growth that would be expected from investment, technological advances, efficiencies from having a transparent pipeline of projects and much better leverage of publicly owned assets. Fiscal devolution was vital. Just as the Victorians went through a massive period of infrastructure investment during a similar period of growth, so can we. The Chair called for questions and comments and the following came from members of the committee: Cllr Ravi Govindia (Wandsworth, Conservative) commented: • That he did not see any reference to Primary Care • In the case of electricity substations it was important to safeguard land where the need for infrastructure was predicted • There was a danger that the report would be too top-down and the role of local authorities with their detailed local knowledge should not be forgotten Cllr Ray Puddifoot MBE (Hillingdon, Conservative) asked whether the intention was to seek to build on Green Belt land after 2025? Cllr Alan Smith (Lewisham, Labour) argued that attention not only needed to be paid to electricity sub-stations, in addition: • Integrated thinking was needed on the micro-generation of energy through waste recovery • Ninety-eight per cent of processed water was not used for what it was supplied for