David Taylor reports from our latest Sounding Board meeting and their hopes for resolving London's key issues from national government and the Mayor of London.

Housing and young people should be the key priorities for the election manifestoes of political parties in the upcoming elections – both this year’s general election and the vote for London mayor this May. 

 

But better local authority funding and devolution of power, an emphasis on green industry, social justice, a review of taxes, improved relationships with the rest of the world and transport upgrades like the West London Orbital rail line come in close behind. All that, along with a ‘war on grot’– reducing the number of commercial waste-collecting companies to one per borough and ending the ‘destruction’ of parts of the city by utility firms. 

 

‘These are tiny things that cost the government nothing’ said the latter idea’s proposer, Tony Travers of the LSE. ‘They cause terrible detriment and the poorer you are, the worse your neighbourhood will be’.

 

Travers was speaking as part of a roundtable discussion with other members of the NLA’s Sounding Board session this month where the panel was asked for their priorities for the capital in the run-up to the general and mayoral elections. 

Travers had earlier suggested that the planning system should be reformed, along with the creation of new incentives for local people to benefit from development, and his belief that the commuter rail system and its ‘dismal’ stations should be brought under TfL’s charge.

 

The GLA’s Louise Duggan felt that a ‘fair deal for London’ was needed, with ‘pragmatic problem-solving’ between the capital and national government, but that the next period in cities is going to be about the climate crisis, as well as those affecting health and mental health. Kat Hanna of Avison Young, felt that London needs greater assurance on local authority finance, both in terms of the ability of local authorities to deliver services and to provide the people and resources to ensure that London’s built environment can continue to evolve. Binki Taylor of the Brixton Project suggested that devolution of money and therefore power to a local and regional level could be a help to local authorities, but also yearned for a ‘greater focus on the rights and needs of children and young people’, mental health and social care. Cath Shaw of the London Borough of Barnet agreed on the issue of funding local government adequately. ‘If you want the country to survive and thrive economically you do actually need London to work’, she said. ‘So it's not an either-or; it's a build-on. it's an ecosystem’. Shaw also pointed to specific rail projects such as the West London orbital rail line to help unlock housing and connect people to work, along with the environmental benefits it would bring.

 

Housing was a recurring theme, Fletcher Priest’s Dipa Joshi raising the particular problem of temporary housing and the young, as well as how the housing shortage affects people from different backgrounds, their mental health and wellbeing.

For LCA’s Robert Gordon Clark, the government needed to review council tax – how it is levied and charged and how property is valued, along with another look at business rates. ‘It is an outrage that very rich people get away with paying very little amounts for their enormous expensive properties’, he said. ‘It’s dry and dull, but actually underpins a lot of what we’re talking about’.

 

Martyn Evans of Land Sec U+I continued the theme of government instigating more of a fair deal for young people. ‘I’d like to see a great big basket of measures that are all focused on one dominant goal of giving young people a better start in their working life, post-education’, he said. This could involve looking at the affordability of living, and transport costs. Evans added that London could benefit from the kind of responses it made in the post-COVID period in opening streets, encouraging outdoor eating and employing other measures to make the capital ‘fun’ and ‘liveable’ again.

Laura Citron of London & Partners felt that London needs to have certainty, along with things that are multi-year, predictable, and global, rather than internally focused. ‘Our great strength is that we are an open, international, global trading nation, and we need to return a lot of our civic energy to our relationships with the rest of the world’, she said.

Kemi Oguntoye of Inside the Box Advisory pointed to the potential for removing the charges for going through the Blackwall tunnel as a specific policy, along with improvements to the tube, particularly to southeast London, and, again, measures to allow the boroughs to build more housing.

 

Robert Evans suggested that a long-term view on housing and its funding was needed beyond the election cycle, perhaps with the instigation of a commission, whilst addressing a growing challenge of ‘generational inequity’. Evans added that there should be more investment in green industry. 

 

On a similar theme, Sunand Prasad of Perkins&Will and UKGBC talked of the climate and the need to reframe the issue in a way that minimises the impact of the culture wars away from ‘doom and gloom’, regulation and compulsion, ‘and more towards the opportunity it represents to renew our city’. ‘If you combine the imperative of retrofit and climate emergency, the need in some areas of London where there is really bad, crumbling infrastructure and services, there’s a really good, positive story to tell’, he said. Within that there are things to say on skills, growth and green industries, added Prasad.

 

Lucy Musgrave of Publica said there should be a greater focus on collaboration with organisations like LETI, and more consensus-building across sectors, with carbon and social justice high on the agenda in the capital.

 

Finally, before he presented the New London Agenda, Taking Action, Nick McKeogh of the NLA suggested that affordable housing should be thought of as infrastructure, with more emphasis across borough boundaries.