The Official London Mayoral Election Thread

[loadbang]

Siobhan Benita, one of the only sensible candidates with her head screwed on.

[Medo]

Originally Posted by PresidentBjork

I'm going to vote for medo. Not sure where, when and in what, but medo it is.

Vote for Medo and all your dreams will come true.

[alonzo-ny]

Boris v Ken: who should get your vote?

19 April, 2012 | By Merlin Fulcher
From Architects Journal

With only a fortnight until the London mayor 2012 polls close, Merlin Fulcher breaks down the housing, planning and transport pledges of front-runners Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone and explains how their manifestos affect the profession

The race for London’s new mayor is hotting up. With power over planning, the Olympic Legacy and regeneration, the ultimate victor will have a profound influence over the lives and projects of architects working in the capital.

However, with only a fortnight to go until the polls close on 3 May, the profession has yet to single out a favourite.

The most divisive issue for the two front-runners could be housing. Labour candidate and former mayor Ken Livingstone raised eyebrows last week over his pledge to make half of all new homes affordable – a rule previously scrapped by Conservative mayoral candidate and incumbent Boris Johnson.

Developments involving loss of social housing without replacement would be blocked.

Labour peer Richard Rogers welcomed the policy’s potential resurrection, which he said would ‘break down poor and rich ghettos.’

Rogers also backed Livingstone’s plans for a London-wide non-profit lettings agency and for future construction to be on previously developed land to prevent ‘urban sprawl’.

However, Berman Guedes Stretton director Bruce Cockburn warned a similar ‘50 per cent rule’ in Oxford had had ‘a desperate effect on the supply of housing, which is now almost non-existent’.

He said: ‘Applying this rule hammers land value to such an extent that developers will build anything before housing.’

Livingstone, who won the AJ100 ‘greatest contribution to the profession’ award in 2009, would also encourage modular eco-housing and council house-building, and has pledged to use mayoral planning powers to make it easier for ‘rapidly-expanding’ churches to gain planning permission, especially concerning opposition to ‘change of use’ applications.

In constrast, Johnson has promised to deliver 55,000 affordable homes by 2015 and invest £821 million to improve 45,000 council houses. He has also launched a £5 billion London Development Panel to oversee housing in the capital.

Studio Octopi’s Chris Romer-Lee said: ‘The only real difference between Livingstone and Johnson is on rents. As a small practice looking to get into affordable housing, we would like to know how any new mayor will embrace innovation in housing and control design standards.’

Ben Derbyshire, managing director of HTA, urged the candidates to promote ‘substantial institutional investment’ in private rented development and to scrap the coalition’s ‘anti-garden grabbing’ stance, which Johnson has pledged to uphold.

He also recommended a repeal of the ‘Right to Light legislation which creates a nightmare of complexity for developers.’

Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick claimed he would create 40,000 homes above shops while Jenny Jones for the Green Party has promised a ban on foreign property investors.

In relation to transport issues, the mayoral frontrunners’ opposing views about Norman Foster’s £50 billion Thames Estuary Airport proposal for the Isle of Grain in Kent will also split voters. Johnson has long promoted the idea of a hub airport east of the capital but Livingstone has made scrapping the proposals a key part of his election manifesto.

Though openly pro-development, Livingstone said in his manifesto he would ‘not waste any more Londoners’ money and will scrap this plan,’ claiming the four-runway airport would ‘ultimately close Heathrow’. He also ruled out a third runway at Heathrow.

ADP chair Roger FitzGerald said without an estuary airport London risked becoming a ‘transport backwater’ and called for a ‘decisive’ and long-term strategy for London’s future.

‘Infrastructure, particularly transport, is the key. Whoever can grasp this challenge deserves to be the next mayor.’


The London mayoral contenders
Boris Johnson Conservative, London mayor 2008 - present

Boris Johnson

POLICIES

Housing
£5 billion London Development Panel launched
Deliver 55,000 affordable homes by 2015
Campaign against rent controls
Larger new homes and better design standards
£821 million to improve 45,000 council houses
Maintain presumption against ‘back garden’ development
Empty homes to constitute less than 1 per cent of stock

Transport
Lobby for Thames Estuary hub airport and block third Heathrow runway
Explore Thames crossing between Vauxhall and Chelsea bridges
Extend Northern Line to Battersea
Extend the ‘Boris bike’ scheme
No High Speed 2 without Crossrail 2 funding
Improve rundown suburban rail stations
Extend DLR from Lewisham to Bromley
Tramlink extension to Crystal Palace
Road tunnel from Greenwich Peninsula to Silvertown within 10 years

Growth
Look at a ‘Barnett’ style funding mechanism for London
£221 million regeneration fund to support small businesses
Support a science institute on the Olympic Park
£221 million to transform local high streets

Environment
Roll out 1,300 electric car-charging points by 2013
Plant 20,000 extra street trees
Restore 120 hectares of green space
Create 100 ‘pocket parks’
Upgrade London’s ‘look and feel’


Ken Livingstone, Labour, London mayor 2000-2008

Ken Livingstone

Ken Livingstone

POLICIES


Housing
‘Tough’ planning regulations so private developments meet wider needs
Encourage council house building
50 per cent of new homes to be affordable
Encourage modular eco-housing
Developments that involve a loss of social housing without replacement to be blocked
London non-profi t lettings agency to reduce rents

Transport
Make a third of all tube stations step-free by 2016
Redesign cycle superhighways and invite Tour de France back to London
Scrap plans for a Thames Estuary hub airport and no new runway at Heathrow
Crossrail to be extended to Ebbsfl eet, with Crossrail 2 supported and Crossrail 3 safeguarded
Extend Croydon Tramlink to Crystal Palace

Growth
Support ‘rapidlyexpanding’ churches to gain planning permission
Support for ‘tech city’ around London’s fringe
Equal pay for women to be championed

Environment
Free home insulation for those in fuel poverty
Public realm programmes to be extended
Create an ‘uninterrupted’ central London pedestrian network linking the Thames, Trafalgar Square, Soho and Covent Garden
Review cycle hire scheme to make it appeal to wider range of Londoners
Expand traffic-free ‘Greenways’ cycle routes connecting suburbs

[alonzo-ny]

"Support ‘rapidly expanding’ churches to gain planning permission"

I find this completely bizarre as a policy.

"50 per cent of new homes to be affordable"

I think this is a bad idea, and as the article says has been a disaster in Oxford for obvious reasons.

[alonzo-ny]

Well, Jenny Jones has lost my second preference vote with some idiotic comment about getting rid of city airport. I am actually starting to really dislike Ken and am considering voting Boris to keep him away from the job.

[RobH]

This is an interesting little site:

http://www.mayor4london.com

[alonzo-ny]

Interesting, my results reflect exactly how I am planning to vote. Unless I go the vote Boris, keep out Ken route:

Paddick: 24.6%
Benita: 22.5%
Boris: 15.8%
Ken: 11.3%
Jones: 2.5%
BNP: -8.5%

[Stairz]

while i don't really give a dick about london's mayoral erections, isn't boris the only candidate willing to address the need for greater air travel capacity in the south east?

i don't care if he's killing babies (or whatever it is livingstone says he's doing) - he'd get my vote on that alone.

[RobH]

Ken 35%
Siobhan 29.2%
JJ 22.5%
Paddick 17.1%
Boris 11.7%
UKIP -11.2%

That doesn't necessarily reflect how I'll vote though. Not sure yet.

[anonymous1]

Brian Paddick: 18.3%
Boris Johnson: 14.3%
Siobhan Benita: 13.8%
Ken Livingstone: 6.3%
Lawrence Webb: 3.8%
Jenny Jones: -3.6%

The first one is my first preference anyway, so that's good. I put undecided on the quiz though, just in case it skewed my results.

[wjfox]

My results -

20.8% Ken Livingstone (Labour)
19.6% Siobhan Benita (Independent)
18.3% Jenny Jones (Greens)
-0.8% Boris Johnson (Conservative)
-1.3% Brian Paddick (LibDem)
-12.9% Lawrence Webb (UKIP)

[NCT]

My goodness, my results tell me this

26.7% Jenny Jones
26.3% Siobhan Benita
22.1% Ken Livingstone
22.1% Brian Paddick
3.8% Boris Johnson
-21.4% Lawrence Webb

[Octoman]

Mine

+36% Lawrence Webb (UKIP)
+35.5% Boris Johnson (Conservative)
+8.2% Brian Paddick (LibDem)
+2.2% Siobhan Benita (Independent)
-8.6% Ken Livingstone (Labour)
-25.0% Jenny Jones (Greens)


Surprised by the Lawrence Webb.

My vote is for Boris and my second preference is for Benita partly because I like the idea of a wider field and it would be nice to see an independent do quite well.

[larven]

Originally Posted by alonzo-ny

Well, Jenny Jones has lost my second preference vote with some idiotic comment about getting rid of city airport.

Did you see her comment about wanting to block foreign property investors!

Her policies are bonkers and would kill London's economy stone dead.

[alonzo-ny]

This is the whole problem with the greens. They don't live in reality and will never get anywhere with these policies.

[Bachy Soletanche]

Originally Posted by larven

Did you see her comment about wanting to block foreign property investors!

Her policies are bonkers and would kill London's economy stone dead.

Well I've always felt sorry for anyone following in the foot steps of Keith Moon.

Oh, Jenny Jones..

[larven]

I don't like how Boris won't support HS2 if London doesn't get yet another huge infrastructure project thrown in as part of the deal.

F*** off Boris.

[Octoman]

But if HS2 is going to work to its potential then it needs to integrate fully into the London transport network. No point doing it if it just terminates into a bottleneck and snarles up London. I can see a case for crossrail 2 here.

Birmingham should push for infrastructure upgrades of their own if they think they are necessary.

[levaniX]

Of course, I'm slow, but when is election? Tomorrow? or today?

[Langur]

Ken was a good mayor back in 2000. He had a good head for detail, and surprised many by working closely with developers and the City, despite his infamous "Red Ken" past. Today he has sadly slumped back to his former self, raging against bankers and capitalism in this, the most capitalist of cities, and banking capital of the world. Finance is London's core industry, the one that supports all the others. We need a mayor that champions our interests, but Ken will undermine them.

In 2012 Ken is a cranky old man, increasingly erratic and gaffe prone, and with no fresh ideas. His plan to raid TFL's budget (money that's being stored up to deliver the Tube upgrades) and to give it away on immediate fare cuts is reckless populism. Ken's irresponsible budgets, whereby he expects Westminster to bail out his overspending, is out of touch with the austere reality of the times.

I was unsure of Boris a few years ago, and voted against him. I've been pleasantly surprised. He defended Crossrail in its entirety from George Osborne's budget cuts (something Ken would never have been able to achieve), and his new bus is absolutely beautiful. If Ken was the mayor that secured the Shard for London, Boris is the man to secure London's next icon. Some people mock Boris's buffoonish personality, but unlike, say, George Bush, Boris's bumbling persona masks a deep intellect. Boris's posh/eccentric image is also great marketing for a city like London. Most crucially, Boris is better placed to secure concessions from Westminster (as he did with Crossrail), and this is the single most important factor at stake in these elections.