Have your say on the draft London Budget for 2023-24

• We urgently need investment in London's biodiversity and proper, science-based management of our green spaces, for example SSSIs, Local Nature reserves and Sites of Metropolitan Importance for Nature (SINCs). Councils do not have funding to look after these and other green spaces in an educated way - that is, they need ecological advice and help with monitoring and management. 
• Create funds for all councils to have an ecologist or equivalent on their staff. Greenwich Council, for example, has no one to advise and they lack the ability to make judgements about actions to take.
• Fund vital training of young people and others in green jobs, biodiversity and habitat work and help them partner with organisations such as TCV, the RSPB and others. This will be even more important in the years to come.
• Take funds away from the Silvertown Tunnel to pay for improved public transport elsewhere. If the Silvertown Tunnel cannot now be cancelled, make it a cycle/public transport tunnel to help those without cars and improve air quality.
• Ensure new and replacement outdoor LED lighting is not too bright and not 'cold' or blue in tone - studies show that doing this will help reduce impacts on wildlife such as bats and moths, as well as light pollution spilling into the night sky, and reduce disturbance to people's sleep.
• Expand the congestion charge, ULEZ and LTNs to create a safer, walkable city, and look to Paris' example for how to transform a city from a traffic sewer into a liveable place where people want to linger outdoors and visit cafes and shops.
• Do anything you can to make trains less expensive and more comfortable.
• Help reduce the number of plane and helicopter flights, that cause air and noise pollution that harms so many of us.
• Ensure 20mph speed limits on all but the widest roads, to reduce deaths and injuries and fear of this, so people no longer feel constantly at the mercy of vehicles, and to open up outdoor space for people again.
• Thank you 

Reimagining Neighbourhoods is fine as it goes, but what is needed is a major Reimagining of London, to decentralise the tourism and leisure attractions, relocate them out in newly-redesigned London 'villages' (for want of a better term).  The centre of London became more than unsustainable years and years ago - this is the gigantic elephant in the room that the GLA, the Mayor, the boroughs, the London commercial organisations all carefully and wilfully ignore.  It is sad that this Mayor has not been able to think creativerly enough about this, not thinking big enough.  There are so many London locations with dreary strung-out lines of ugly buildings with shops along the bottom. These need redesigning as sustainable neighbourhoods, with parking on that main road, buildings with their backs to the road, and shops and attractions rebuilt off the main road. Theatres, restaurants, leisure activities, local museums, each locale with it's own character. Hotels and hostels. Housing away from the main road. Transport cutting across London to take people between these centres and between them and the centre.  Shift the tourists and the after-work life out to the new London 'villages', to many more of them. 

Housing -  very very many more self-build opportunities are needed, and for ordinary Londoners, not for bijou upmarket architect practices & developers.  And the self-build schemes need to be extended, so that they are not just available to geographically-based groups and communities.  This is very restrictive indeed, and not realistic. Community is not necessarily based on a geographical location - it might be like-minded people from all over London, or groups of friends, or people linked by their occupation. 

What about the awful pollution from the Silvertown Tunnel?! Whilst I am pleased to see the climate emergency being considered 'the biggest threat we face', this must be our number one priority due to both pollution levels and the wider effects on residents health.

There also needs to be a greater acknowledgment of the pressures on the NHS and how local services are overrun and not fit for purpose for many londoners.

Youth homelesness is an increasing and worrying issue and this needs to be addressed as does the quality of housing and temporary accommodation available to those in those vulnerable positions.

The Warmer Homes Programme should be extended to HA tenants, as othewise they will still be waiting at the End of Time for their landlords to do anything about insulating their homes or putting in any other energy saving measures.  It is just not realistic to think that the 'hard to heat' and 'hard to insulate' blocks of flats will be dealt with by HA landlords. At most they will eventually, some time in the distant future, evacuate residents to other parts of the UK and demolish the blocks.  If the GLA and Mayor do not help these tenants, nobody will. 

Environment - clean air.  This is URGENT - the congestion charge must be applied 24/7, immediately. In the cenre of London residents, including children, are now suffering from higher levesl of traffic pollution in the evenings than in the morning rush hour.  There is plenty of public transport available, even some bus routes are still running, overland trains, the underground PLUS the new Elizabeth Line. So WHY have car owners been given a holiday from the congestion charge in the evenings?  Residents' health should be the priority, and you need the income.  The congestion charge should be increased as well.  Smaller businesses should be supported with large enough grants towards buying lpg or electric vans.

Impressive proposals. It cannot have been an easy task to redress the issues London has faced during and post the pandemic. The highlighted areas are all interrelated. The much needed ULEZ expansion will be most successful with great transportation. Public realm improvements and greater resources for Policing will aid safer streets. This, in turn, will encourage people to walk, cycle and use public transport which will lead to better air quality. Glad to see there’s a focus on the climate. 
 

I would like to see the Met have a dedicated, in-house team of social workers who accompany them on selected call-outs. I’ve seen this work well in another country/ city. The Met are in dire need of financial and Human Resources as are the Fire Service and NHS! At the same time, community engagement needs to be effective so that we can help to develop the systems that will afford the best possible quality of life. Safer streets please
 

Whenever building new housing / affordable homes is mentioned you see comments about homelessness. However, it should also be noted that there’s a marked increase in people occupying temporary accommodation. for years. We need to build! 

I fully support the budget proposals. 

Overall I am impressed with the overall thought that has gone into this budget and congratulate those involved.

I would like more thought about Early Years child care, due to the loss through pandemic years and more

opportunities for leisure hour activities for children of all ages.   

Agree that funding for public services like police and fire service is very important but these organisations also need to be accountable and as someone else has commented, to represent the public they serve, so erradicating prejudice and endemic behaviours like sexism and homophobia is essential, and not just in the 'public eye' but in actual reality.  As a woman in London I do think about my safety and some schemes are inadequte for purpose e.g. my borough Richmond promoted their system to register an 'unsafe' road/space to have it assessed for better lighting, but the system doesn't account for the fact some places aren't listed e.g. car parks!

Public transport and climate change are closely linked.  Despite the ULEZ being unpopular this needs to happen, as do more extreme restrictions on our liberty with car driving for the greater good.  Take other European countries where this has been done and you will find that people accept and work with the changes e,g, Denmark & The Netherlands.  The infrastructure for more sustainable forms of transport needs to be invested in so that this can be achieved.  More integration of green transport methods i.e. cycling/scooters/walking with trains, tubes and buses is essential to make this work effectively and encourage us all to use more sustainable methods of transport.

New homes/housing needs.  We have a serious problem with housing being unaffordable and a growing homeless population.  I agree with other comments about how young people are totally priced out of the housing market but are needed for the economy and smooth working of many services and industries in London.  Yet there have clearly been millions invested in fancy apartment buildings all along the train routes in to London.  Who is living in these huge blocks of glass?  Who can afford it? Are they actually occupied?  Could developers/Landlords/Councils/the Mayor/homeless charities/housing associations work together to help create a solution??

As a Hillingdon resident I support ULEZ despite the noisy opposition in this Borough. Reducing and calming traffic should be a priority alongside minimizing air pollution. 20 MPH speed limits on residential roads would make our suburbs safer, more pleasant and with better air quality. Improving Public transport needs to be a priority - and I would like to see a greater drive towards step-free access. There is an idea I have seen for setting up a Mayor's fund  which would enable Companies, Philanthropists and individuals to contribute towards getting tube stations made step free which looks a great idea. Anything which will encourage more people to use public transport. Older people, people with heavy shopping, people with push chairs and other mobility issues benefit from step free access. Electric and accessible buses would also be a big step in the right direction. Measures at the city and Borough level to tackle climate change should also be a major priority for all our sakes. Schemes like Solar Together have been good in getting more people (like myself) to take the jump into getting solar panels installed but measure like this and home insulation and transitioning to heat pumps are expensive and there needs to be more financial help available -and better publicity around local schemes and grants. To encourage people to switch to electric vehicles there needs to be a big drive towards providing an adequate battery recharging infrastructure in residential settings such as blocks of flats where home charging is problematic.

It's really not complicated:

Fund and advertise apprentice roles that improve country wide infrastructure.

We also need a cultural shift: the working person needs more respect. This shift starts with promoting the good that manual labour jobs do for our civilisation. Promote this in early education.

Everyone wins.

Does the Mayor have contact with Local Authorities and the NHS, who battle one another over social care, each 'protecting' a budget. But each squandering budget by refusal to cooperate? Could the Mayor's office try to persuade both parties to consider the word  'HOTEL'?

Londoners lives would be improved and the public purse helped if only 'bed-blockers' were routinely sent to hotels. Not all need round the clock care. London housing stock is disability-hostile. Many cannot go home, simply because they cannot climb stairs. Hotels have lifts.

Or, they cannot shop, prepare and cook food, following some permanent injury. Hotels have chefs. Or, they are no longer strong enough to do the cleaning. Hotels have cleaners. Or, they are well enough to leave hospital but not to live in isolation. Hotels have staff and fellow guests, to hear calls for help if someone has fallen. Or, they cannot struggle in and out of a bath. Hotels have ensuite walk-in showers. 

Hospital beds cost £400 a night. Care homes cost a fortune. Care round the clock or even for a few hours a day is nearly impossible to find or to afford. Living in a hotel would be the cheapest, easiest and instant option, for many.  

Even those who do need carers, or nursing visits, to their own homes, will be wasting valuable staff time, because every hour travelling from one home visit to the next is an hour which could be doing something useful.

If a group of patients are in the same hotel, they can all have their 'home-visits' in one visit. Even if they need continuous monitoring, if will be affordable using cctv easily established along a dedicated floor of a hotel, so just one or two staff would be able to check, and use video call consultations with doctors

If the Mayor can do this, he can next ensure that not a single disability-hostile home is ever again added to London housing stock.  In 2 years, climate-hostile building must stop. Stop it now, and add the disability living standards too 

The are free armies of  volunteers, willing to make people's lives better. Use them.  Depression is known to be cured doing acts of kindness. The first Covid response swamped the system with volunteers.  Yet housebound people are unvisited, struggling carers are unhelped, filth covers every space,  and cctv footage cannot be monitored.

The Mayor could link volunteers, and the individuals or organisations who need extra hands or eyes to make them work better.  Two extremes need help. 

One is IF you know your neighbour has need, (in London you won't) to bring his groceries. (Officials view such volunteers as criminals.)

The other is organisations which could use a 'shadow' helper. Charities but also, e.g. care workers (Or, importantly, help unpaid family carers, on duty 24/7  desperately needing a  break, a helping hand)   

Maybe for police forces who cannot monitor crime hotspot cameras as often as they would wish, they would be glad of being able to send the signal to someone who could be at home in another part of the country, but would be able to flag a warning. People love to do things for public good. They will 'adopt' a street tree to water. They will pick up litter. Because there is no budget for something does not mean it cannot be done.   

I don’t agree with the expansion of ULEZ, I live in the middle of two of the boroughs it’s being extended to which will impact me when travelling to the hospital, schools and work. Penalising people who live in the greener outer boroughs that do not have the same transport connections as Central London is unfair and the ULEZ scheme with its many flaws is discriminatory.  What assurance do we have that the goal post won't keep moving if we switch our vehicles? Pay per mile is already being discussed for all vehicles. If this was about cleaner air then we wouldn’t be able to pay £12.50 to suddenly make our cars compliant.

One of my concerns is the level of building new homes in certain parts of London, whilst others are left free of any new builds, and the outrageous costs of living in London in respect of transport and housing more generally. Nothing in these proposals reassures me of progress in either issue.

The local police in my area, Walthamstow, are entirely invisible - the “local” station was turned into flats, as was the local library, DIY store and just about every tiny piece of land in the postcode. Next door in Tory Chingford, there’s virtually nothing happening. There should be some kind of accountability and recognition of what adding over 3,000 people to an area of less than half a mile does to the schools, GP surgeries, roads etc. I fully support the need for affordable housing in London, I was born here as were my children and they ought to be able to afford to live here - but please let some common sense prevail. The cheapest affordable property in the five closest developments within a 10 minute walk of my house, is around £300,000 - more than I paid for my three-bedroomed house. I literally have no idea how my 20 year old daughter could ever afford this.

On transport, it may be world class but it’s also the most expensive. I support ULEZ but will continue to use my car, although not for very short journeys, because when I weigh up the wait times, reliability and cost of public transport, against using my small economical car, there’s no contest. 

Stop  the building. 1.2 million visas are given every year. Reasonably it must be assumed the same number arrive without visas, some informing authorities of their arrival and some not.  The census must be a work of fantasy, since nobody with people crammed into their home will list them all on any form. London is too small, in fact the whole UK is too small, to build faster than unlimited millions can arrive.

Any building plans approved under current legislation will be substandard in two years. The Salford University scheme tests climate-resistant buildings for new climate realities.  A halt on building would also enable a ban on building uninhabitable homes. Climate change is here, now.

Construction is one of the biggest causes of pollution, especially using outdated eco unfriendly methods and materials.  Retrofit never works properly, and in London the resource of free underground heat must be part of any planning. So must solar and wind recovery, and solar window glass, solar tiles, and all the emerging free energy sources.

London could ban any building without greening included in the design, by living wall cladding, roof planting, and every window made into at least a Juliet balcony to allow air movement and the opportunity to plant in window boxes and balcony tubs. Other cities such as Singapore are densely packed, but pleasant and green.People need private defensible outdoor space, as not everyone can get to a park or a wood, and not everyone would be safe if they did.  

Fund equality groups equally.  Attend to the forgotten, who cannot go yelling in the streets nor even get to food banks. Many people are housebound. Not many of them have much money nor live-in free servants.Age Equality and Disability Equality are never, never Equal, in the minds of planners. 

Would City Hall be happy if there was a plan to say people from certain race or religious groups will be left to die in the next Grenfell? If not, why is it ok not to have PEEPs? Disabled people, old people, injured people, won't be able to fight through the crowds nor climb downstairs.

Any scheme requiring "go to...." is automatically practicing unlawful discrimination. What about those who physically can not "go to....." ?  Every scheme centred on attending a geographical position or a building is discriminating against Londoners who pay the same share of tax but are excluded from taking up what is provided.    

Ban The Burn. Air quality is harmed MORE by bonfires and wood burning than by traffic. People setting light to parks and heaths in drought cause more damage to biodiversity and greening and air quality than all the greening efforts can correct. At many times last year the Fire Brigade was close to losing control of fires endangering property and people. Disposable vapes and bbqs, burning fireworks, and the sale of ANY wood burner, encourages what is indefensible, and dangerous to life. The public mainly  don't realise how they poison air inside their homes, and poison the planet. Smoke never "blows away". Pollution is harming oceans and is falling from the skies at North and South poles. Some L.A.s ban it. Some did during Covid. If traffic rules can cover all London, so can bans on burning.  

I'm broadly happy with the Mayor's priorities and glad to see attention given to tackling air pollution and the climate crisis (heading our way very fast), supporting young people and helping to address the cost of living crisis which is putting so many London households and small businesses in dire straits. My only reservation is about increasing funding for the Met, without a total overhaul of their culture, operations and HR management. It's unacceptable for them to continue receiving London council tax payers' funds without an independent, external oversight body with real teeth, and which has a strong and active role for community groups, especially those representing girls and women and people of colour, to raise their concerns and to have a say in designing the Met's culture change plans and monitoring progress,

I'm 100% in favour of the extension of ULEZ as I live on the current boundary and suffer from breathing problems. Too many people drive for short journeys when they could walk or use a bus. We need to discourage car use. I agree with others here that we need better public transport in South London, starting with the buses. 

TfL have done a great job during the pandemic and it is good to hear they are moving back to sustainable funding in the next year.  

I think any increase in funding for the police and fire services should be dependent on evidence of culture change to combat institutional racism, sexism and homophobia. I don't feel they are delivering a safe service to the public. If you think about it, women, people of colour and LBGTQ+ people together are a huge majority of the population of this city. We are paying more than half the Council Tax and need decent services that meet our needs.

Someone made a good point that low-level street lighting may be good for the environment but it is not good for women and girls. I do not feel safe walking home in the dark. You can't see very far ahead or behind you. A couple of times men have followed me and it is nerve-racking. 

Overall, thank you Sadiq Khan and GLA for prioritising the environment and our safety.