Written Answers to questions not answered at Mayor’s Question Time on 18 November 2009 Nolan Principles Question No: 3396 / 2009 John Biggs Do you support the Nolan Principles and do you consider your office to be bound by them? Oral response Olympic ticketing – local residents Question No: 3254 / 2009 Dee Doocey Do you share my concern that despite 7 years of disruption caused by the construction of the Olympic Park, local residents will not be entitled to any discount on the purchase of tickets for the Olympic and Paralympic Games? Oral response Olympic Route Network Question No: 3634 / 2009 Victoria Borwick What consideration has been given to reserving one carriage on the Javelin for the Olympic family as an alternative to ‘Zil’ Lanes? Oral response Press conferences Question No: 3142 / 2009 Darren Johnson Given growing concern about your lack of availability to answer questions from journalists on a wide range of topics relevant to Londoners, will you agree to follow the practice of your predecessor and re-instate weekly mayoral press conferences at City Hall? Oral response Practical winter help for the elderly Question No: 3339 / 2009 Richard Barnbrook The Mayor is keen to ensure adequate provision for London’s elderly during the coming winter. What can he do to ensure that the need for awkward and stressful form filling is reduced? Many elderly people find these forms difficult, confusing and sometimes demeaning. Bear in 1 mind that many elderly folk will not bother to apply for assistance because of pride, and unwillingness to be seen as taking what they can regard as “something for nothing”. Does the Mayor agree we must reassure them that they have a perfect right to as much help as possible from public funds? And will the Mayor agree we have an obligation to facilitate this provision in every way? Oral response Sports Participation Question No: 3551 / 2009 Andrew Boff As LOCOG will not be evaluating how the Olympics contributes to the level of sports participation who will? Oral response Five Billion Savings TfL Business Plan 2009-2018 Question No: 3360 / 2009 Valerie Shawcross Please explain for the record in detail how £5bn savings are to be made from the TfL budget over the current business plan period. How much has already been saved towards this target and where was this money found? Oral response A&E violence Question No: 3610 / 2009 James Cleverly Following reports that London A&E’s suffer from over 20,000 attacks every year, does official information support this statistic and what, if true, can be done to protect the staff and innocent patients from assault? What figures have been reported to the Met and is there a need for greater Police presence at A&E units? Oral response Black History Month Question No: 3361 / 2009 Jennette Arnold At Young People’s Question Time on the 17th September your arts and cultural advisor said “sometimes, it can get a bit boring, doing slavery every year”. Am I to assume that you share her view as you neither intervened nor corrected her statement? Oral response 2 Rough sleeping Question No: 3615 / 2009 Steve O’Connell Will the Mayor give an update on the progress made to end rough sleeping by 2012? Oral response MPA/MPS Budget Planning Question No: 3457 / 2009 Joanne McCartney What views have you fed into the MPA/MPS budget planning process? What challenges do you foresee? Answer from the Mayor: I issued my budget guidance in June and it clearly set out the financial parameters for budget planning purposes for the Metropolitan Police Authority, taking into account the expected downturn in government grant. My current consultation with the Metropolitan Police on its own component budget confirms those financial parameters My guidance also set out a series of priorities for the Metropolitan Police to work to over the next three years covering a series of issues including tackling rape and sexual assault, increasing effectiveness and acting on dangerous dogs There are clearly sizeable financial challenges going forward – particularly for 2011/12 and 2012/13 which will form the first two years of the new spending review in these straitened economic times More generally the Metropolitan Police needs to continue to engage constructively with Londoners during these difficult times, to respond to the upturn in burglary and to develop its counter-terrorism and 2012 capabilities. London Food Board (1) Question No: 3540 / 2009 Brian Coleman What is the budget of the Food Board for London and exactly how does it “promote food”? Oral response Improving services for London’s rail passengers Question No: 3288 / 2009 Caroline Pidgeon What formal meetings have you personally held during the past month with Chief Executives of train operating companies? Oral response 3 ORN (4) Question No: 3502 / 2009 Richard Tracey Would you view a fine of £5,000 for driving in an Olympic lane as excessive, considering that the standard TfL fine for driving in a bus lane is £120? Oral response Road Safety Question No: 3143 / 2009 Jenny Jones Can you cut road safety enforcement budgets and make roads safer? Oral response LEZ and Horseboxes Question No: 3533 / 2009 Roger Evans Given that the air quality strategy is still in draft form, are you considering making horse transportation exempt within the LEZ? Oral response Pedestrian Guard removal Question No: 3465 / 2009 Joanne McCartney TfL is removing pedestrian guard rails around London. These are being removed without consultation with local residents, and in many cases are causing anger, concerns for safety and frustration that the public aren’t involved in any consultation on removals? As Chair of transport for London can you instruct TfL to always consult local residents’ associations for their views before any final decision is taken? Answer from the Mayor: I made clear in my election manifesto that I would instruct TfL to review the use of guard rail throughout the Transport for London Road Network (TLRN) to improve the look at feel of London, and remove it wherever it was not providing a clear safety benefit. TfL is implementing my pledge, and in each case undertakes a stringent risk assessment to confirm whether the guard railing provides a clear safety benefit. The results of these assessments, in addition to consultation with the local borough, then inform TfL’s decision for removal or retention of the guard rail. Where a risk assessment recommends that guard railing be removed, there is an audit of the safety implications of doing so by TfL’s London Road Safety Unit. Thousands of guard rail sites are being assessed for removal. In order to ensure that TfL can manage any objections to removal at such a large number of simultaneous locations efficiently, the local borough is consulted so that they may provide TfL with their extensive local knowledge, including views expressed by local stakeholders, rather than approaching residents or residents’ associations directly on each occasion. Any comments or feedback offered by the local borough are then considered and reviewed prior to any removal. 4 There is a further safety audit following removal of guard railing, and any comments received from residents are included in this audit. The audit involves the undertaking of a full road safety audit to ensure that the decision to remove the guard railing was correct. Hotel Capacity (1) Question No: 3618 / 2009 Kit Malthouse I understand “strategically important hotel capacity”, as referred to in Policy 4.5 of the London Plan, to mean large numbers of high quality hotel bedrooms located in places of strategic importance to visitors and tourists with good local transport links to the rest of the capital. Will you consider clarifying the definition of “strategically important hotel capacity” in the next draft of the London Plan and will this definition broadly conform to one I have outlined above? Answer from the Mayor: My replacement London Plan is currently subject to public consultation and I welcome any suggestions on how it can be made more effective in achieving my vision and objectives for London. I will take your suggested definition of ‘strategically important hotel capacity’ as a useful and constructive contribution to the consultation process and take it into account when finalising the Plan in light of the wider recommendations of the Panel on the Plan’s Examination in Public. Empty flats above shops - audit Question No: 3256 / 2009 Mike Tuffrey Will your audit of empty homes include flats above shops, which often are not recorded as empty homes? Oral response School buses (1) Question No: 3596 / 2009 Tony Arbour How many dedicated school buses does Transport for London operate? Answer from the Mayor: Most journeys to/from school are catered for by the main bus network. However there are some locations where there is insufficient bus capacity. In these circumstances TfL run special school services. There are 73 routes that conform to this criteria. In addition there are a number of additional journeys that operate on main bus routes that provide extra capacity to meet specific school demands. Biking boroughs (1) Question No: 3155 / 2009 Jenny Jones Can you confirm that Biking Boroughs will have no extra funds to directly address barriers to 5 cycling in Outer London? Answer from the Mayor: The principle behind biking boroughs is to enable a borough to develop strategic plans that maximise the economic, health and environmental benefits of cycling. Biking boroughs seek to promote cycling in an integrated way; combining smarter travel interventions and investment in infrastructure and traffic management. All of these measures to address the barriers to cycling in outer London can be delivered via existing LIPs funding, so that no additional funding streams are currently proposed.