Housing and infrastructure are the key challenges facing the capital, according to Londoners polled by City Hall.
The 2014 London survey was created to ask Londoners what they think about the city to help inform the work of the Mayor and City Hall with 3,674 responses received via the GLA's Talk London website.
The poll's findings put housing as the most pressing issue for London with 87 per cent of respondents believing more housing is needed generally, while 65 per cent think more housing is required in their local area. When asked to rank the best solutions to the housing challenge, the poll found four measures came out neck and neck - these were supporting home ownership for first time buyers; making sure landlords act fairly; improving the quality of existing social housing; and increasing the building of new homes.
On transport, the poll found people in general are very positive about the reliability of their local transport - 81 per cent agree that this is the case, and only 12 per cent disagreed. Eighty-five per cent of respondents were impressed with new payment options and 79 per cent now using digital technology like phone apps to plan journeys. On cycling, 47 per cent think provision has improved compared to 23 per cent who disagree. More than half of responses said public transport is now more accessible for people in wheelchairs and families with buggies. However, on roads, 68 per cent say local roads are too busy and only 15 per cent think there is less congestion.
With regards to policing, most people feel safe walking along in their neighbourhoods (91 per cent) and London (88 per cent) during the day, which drops to 60 per cent and 51 per cent in the evening. Thirty-seven per cent of respondents agree that their local area has police who are visible, reliable and responsive with 29 per cent disagreeing.
More generally, the vast majority of Londoners are satisfied with London and their local area as a place to live. Over 75 per cent felt their neighbourhood is a pleasant place to live, with reliable transport links and good parks/green spaces.
Expectations for the city's economy are positive with 57 per cent feeling that it will improve over the next 12 months. On a personal level 92 per cent of respondents think the cost of living has increased over the last 12 months and 89 per cent expect the cost of living to increase further over the following year. Just over half of Londoners feel confident they have the right skills for the jobs market, and training and apprenticeships are recognised by 94 per cent as a great way to help young people get the skills they need for jobs in London.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “This poll has taken the pulse of Londoners to understand more about the issues that matter most to them, and to gauge their thoughts on how we are doing here at City Hall to tackle these key areas. It is reassuring that the findings reflect the priorities my administration has focused on, ploughing record investment into housing and transport and programmes to promote growth.
“Satisfaction levels generally are high, but these findings show that many people remain anxious about the economic outlook. I understand these concerns, which is why support for hard working Londoners has always been and remains top of my agenda. I've recently set out with the Government a plan to secure London's prosperity in the coming years, including the delivery of hundreds of thousands of new jobs and homes.”
The Mayor is delivering programmes that support on-going improvements into the key areas addressed by the London survey. These include:
Housing
- The Mayor is on track to build a record 100,000 low cost homes for Londoners over his two terms, with more than 77,000 already completed. This year alone, more affordable homes are being built than in any other year since the early 1980s.
- The Mayor is stimulating house building with a range of pioneering new policies, including 20 new housing zones to help fast-track the delivery of 50,000 new homes; and a housing bank to make long term low cost loans available for new affordable homes.
- The Mayor has launched the first ever London Rental Standard - a city-wide badge of accreditation, to help millions of Londoners rent with confidence. The standard is awarded to all landlords and letting agents who meet a set of significant core commitments set by the Mayor.
Transport
- Over 26 million journeys being on London's roads each day - the Mayor and Transport for London are investing £4bn, the largest investment in a generation, into London's roads. The roads modernisation programme includes hundreds of projects to improve bridges, tunnels and major roads.
- The Mayor's Roads Task Force was set up in 2012 to make journeys more reliable and roads safer for all users.
Economy
- Top of the Mayor’s agenda is support for hardworking Londoners and he has set out plans to stimulate new jobs, provide major improvements to our transport systems, open up new sites for housing, and improve skills. Those moves will ensure London can thrive for decades to come, remain fit to spur the wider UK economy onto further success and primed to outperform our major competitors around the world.
- The Mayor has announced a six point long term economic plan with the Chancellor that aims to create over half a million extra jobs in London by 2020 and solve London’s acute housing problem, the number one challenge facing the city, by building over 400,000 new homes – including through a London Land Commission to identify and support development of brownfield and public sector land. It also includes plans to deliver £10 billion of new investment in London’s transport over the next Parliament and to make London a centre of the world’s creative and commercial life, with new investment in science, finance, technology and culture.
- Apprenticeships continue to be a Mayoral priority and the Mayor is dedicating £130m from the European Social Fund to support young people to learn workplace skills over the next three years. The capital is the fastest growing region in the UK for generating apprenticeships and the London Enterprise Panel, chaired by the Mayor, has doubled the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers to £3,000 per apprentice in order to encourage small and medium-sized businesses to take on more young people in these roles.
- The Mayor’s London Enterprise Panel, the local enterprise partnership for London, is one of 39 LEPs across England and was established by the Mayor to take a strategic view of the regeneration, employment and skills agenda for London. The Panel recently agreed an expansion to its Growth Deal with the Government which will see an extra £58m invested in the capital between 2016 and 2021. That is in addition to the £236m of funding committed by the Government in 2014. Over the lifetime of its Deal (2015-2021) the London Enterprise Panel estimates that up to 2,400 new jobs could be created. With the additional proposed projects the Deal has the potential to generate up to £70m of public and private investment.
- The Mayor has sought to bear down on costs for Londoners including freezing average fares in real terms in 2015 whilst continuing vital Tube upgrades and transport improvements; cutting council tax for the fourth year, leading to an overall ten per cent cut over his second term of office.
Policing
- The Mayor has put an extra 2,600 front-line officers into neighbourhoods across the capital - and to recruit 5,000 new police constables before 2016 to maintain police numbers at or around 32,000. Overall crime is falling in London underscoring the capital's status as one of the safest big cities in the world
London Survey 2014: results are based on interviews with 3,674 London residents aged 18+. Interviews were carried out online via the Talk London community between 3 Oct and 5 Nov 2014. The data has been weighted by age, gender and ethnicity to reflect that of the London population - http://talklondon.london.gov.uk/blogs/talk-london-team
Talk London is an online platform for research, consultation and engagement that was launched by City Hall in July 2012 in order to gather insight into the views and opinions of Londoners. The community now numbers 9,330 members: http://talklondon.london.gov.uk/
Full topline results and data tables are available on London Datastore: http://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/annual-london-survey-2014