Planning London’s future

I had a taste of a good train service during lockdown--I could actually get on board! That has now stopped, and again I'm left packed on the platform like in the before-times, waiting six or seven Jubilee-loads before I can squeeze into someone's armpit to get to work. And of course the price for this privilege has jumped up again.

My job is highly physical and cannot be done remotely. The claim across media has been that we suffered no reduction in productivity with the majority of office workers at home, so this begs the question why are we packing people back onto the trains and back into offices unnecessarily now? Why can't we just leave the trains for jobs and activities that truly depend on you being there? If we could leave the office workers at home where they belong (and want to be anyway) London's commute would be far less unpleasant for the tradespeople and tourists who actually need to do it.

And let's not gloss over this--the delays, the overcrowding, the shoving, the standing on tip-toe to reach something to hold onto that isn't the strangers pressing into you-- they all have an impact on your mental health. They all encourage dread, and make it hard to get out of bed in the morning, put a damper on your enjoyment of your work.

Clearly the funding model depends not on good, steady use of the transport network, but overcrowding and consistent exceeding of capacity. We now charge commuters multiple days' wages for a transit system that doesn't actually have space for them. Prices go up, train frequency drops, it gets more expensive and physically taxing just to get to work. This isn't sustainable or fair. Something has to give. More tax funding, fewer people. Encourage home-workers to move out of town. Incentivise the countryside. I've heard it's nice out there.

Some workplaces are reducing the number of desks available for staff in the office, you have to book a hot desk. There are not enough desks for everyone to be in the office - so I think WFH is here to stay. Many folk with heavy workloads find they can get more done by spending what would have been their journey time catching up/getting ahead.
The current reduction in face cover use on public transport will also deter many people (including me!) from returning to the office.
Making sure that pricing models for public transport journeys continue to offer good value for those that only travel 1 or 2 days a week is one thing that will help.
I agree with others about the revitalising of the local high street - however many local high streets do not have the variety of shops they used to have. Where I live there is not a huge variety of shops, so online shopping and deliveries will still be important and the road network needs to facilitate those deliveries. Currently the LTNs in some boroughs make deliveries very difficult.
My last point is that if we are being encouraged to be walking more (active travel) then the pavements need to be in good condition, uneven paving stones, pot holes and the ridges caused by tree roots are trip hazards and put people off walking. Funding needs to be spent on ensuring that the existing pavements are fit for purpose - not wasted on unnecessary schemes.

A lot of people in my road seem to be doing a mix of working from home and in an office / other workplace, as am I.

Seeing people around more during the day can help foster a greater sense of community.

This makes the residential street environment all the more important. Liveable streets, where people want to hang out, are very important to a sense of community.

The street environment for local shops is also important. Pavements as wide as possible. Trees if possible. Safe crossing places on roads. Cycle lanes and secure places to padlock a bike will also encourage people to use local shopping centres more.

I think people will continue to work from home for at least part of the week, which should make my local area busier and more vibrant - instead of just being a bedroom community for city workers, there is the potential for a wider range of services and activities close to home. This presents a good opportunity for entrepreneurs (who should be supported), as well as chains expanding into the kinds of areas they might not have considered before. I'd like to see more of the kind of everyday shops people can walk to, otherwise the community will continue to order almost everything online - which in turn will have impacts around deliveries, traffic, etc. Nevertheless a huge increase in online shopping compared to before the pandemic is here to stay, and needs to be sensibly accommodated (this means taking care of the drivers and workers in that industry, not just making it easy for shoppers). I would like to see a real push towards making delivery methods less polluting and more energy efficient, with incentives to encourage electric vehicles, scooters, bicycles etc.
City Hall and the boroughs also need to be thinking about how infrastructure will impact on / be impacted by these changes. I live near one end of the new Silvertown tunnel, and the impact of that is hugely concerning - when it was planned there was no thought that thousands of people would be at home every day in the surrounding neighbourhoods, instead of away at work. There needs to be better / more frequent local bus routes, and better walking and cycling infrastructure for the people who will be spending more time in the local area. And we need not only to implement a new standard of housing design that accommodates working from home, but also neighbourhood facilities for the vast majority of people who live in older properties and don't have the option of creating a home office workspace. Increased working from home has the potential to create a whole new area of inequality if not well managed.

Working from Home over time will increase, hybrid working will be replaced with working from home in its entirety where the job supports a virtual presence. I do envisage the need for face to face Collaboration so maybe there will be local hubs people can travel to.

Transport needs will change from the current hubs based around large cities to more distributed transport, Strategies to address this needs to be started now. Unless Public Transport supports new working patterns then people will use cars more which is not going to help the UK attain its Carbon emissions aims.

With people moving away from the Cities over time this will change the house prices which will help to spread the population more evenly across the UK and supporting levelling up. City workers will find they will need to reduce their salaries to compete with those in cheaper to live more remote areas.

Housebuilders will need to include offices in future house build as these will be essential. With more people working from home this will lead to increased fuel consumption as Offices are more efficient than lots of individual workers in their homes so the need to increase heating efficiency in homes becomes increasingly important.

With Cities less busy many Business will collapse. There will be a need to convert Office Blocks into Residential spaces but it is crucial that new building regulations are introduced to ensure these meet much better Insulation profiles. I see Cities becoming thriving Residential areas over time being close to Building of Cultural interest, e.g. Museums, Theatres. I also expect to see Cities paved with cars excluded but Cycles and Scooters allowed. This would significantly reduce pollution levels in the Cities.

I see nothing but benefits accruing from the Home Working era but Employees need to be protected from Poor Employers. It is all too easy to end up working silly hours so legislation to protect workers from being contacted at all hours needs to be introduced.

Stronger community with more pride and care taken of the local area. My local park has some very smelly pollution on a regular basis but because of people having more time at home and less time traveling, people are spending more time together. A group has formed to not only start to deal with this issue, but we're also litter picking and getting improvements made to our park to protect biodiversity and the community.

Less time traveling to work means more family, relax and hobby time, and less pollution, less carbon in the atmosphere. More time to join in with local communities.

There's more pressure on close relationships and domestic abuse numbers have increased dramatically. Mental health has improved for some of us with more time for self care and less stress getting around. It's reduced the resilience and interconnectedness of others. Local community centers and events promoted by local councils could help with this. It's up to all of us to make our culture to the betterment of society, to say what's cool and when people must seek help and why it's ok to seek help if you're overwhelmed, angry, abused or lonely. Or anything else.

I'd like to see local councils and communities taking advantage of this extra time with more opportunities for people to try new things out, learn new skills and meet each other. In Edgeware there aren't any popular pubs or gathering spaces. There's a beautiful old timberframe building really close to the center and station that's been derelict and abandoned for years, maybe it could be repurposed? Or somewhere else. More green spaces would really help and more community minded litter, gardening, science,biodiversity and climate emergency educational campaigns would make a huge difference to local thinking and behaviour.

City Hall could introduce to shop-keepers a general 'hello and welcome' concept, and let them know how this translates to better sales vs. reading a newspaper or playing on one's phone in the presence of customers.

London could introduce the concept of plant walls which would augment climate goals and could be a cheap and easy way for apartment dwellers to enjoy increased activity at home.

London could meet with developers to impress on them that new buildings can take on the look of heritage architecture so as to keep a coherent neighbourhood theme in heritage-rich areas. In my view it was a mistake to erect the 'pickle building' and the 'walkie talkie' building inside the City walls. These buildings and many others inside City walls do not even offer a nod to the architectural precedents of its 2,000-year old traditions.

Working from home is the only viable option at the moment as public transport is too expensive and unreliable. Surbiton -> Leicester Square. A number of people have told our managers that they will leave as wages do not cover the increases for public transport. - Even car sharing is no longer an option.

the plan remains to beef up as much public transport as possible in order to give us a viable choice so that we can select public transport based on cost and frequency rather than being punished for simply wanting to use a car. There has to be more of an incentive to use public transport rather than clog up streets so much with wide cyclepaths effectively turning high streets into clogged lanes.

As someone who does not work from home my main concern is that public transport is maintained. I work in health care and as for other essential services I feel we are somewhat overlooked.
For those who are working at home we need flexible centrally located meeting spaces. Offices would benefit from adapting improve communal areas for networking

Domestic violence victim and if council "help", I'd be put in temp housing that's not ok to work from home from. Crowded, noisy, unsafe. If had safe home, WFH would be very good for me as disabled and WFH could work around disabilities but problem is safe home is almost impossible to get.

I think it's too early to say what will happen about WFH v going into work.
There are many advantages to going to the office - getting out of the house, mixing with a wider variety of people, social opportunities.
Ultimately, maybe we can reach a balance where people are less like office wage-slaves and more able to have a more appropriate balance between home and work.
But we have got to be alert also to becoming WFH wage-slaves where you're never really away from your work and where employers will expect you to work far beyond normal office hours in return for the 'privilege' of WFH.

This is a class thing: your (GLA's) map shows virtually no growth in WFH in Newham etc, massive in SW suburbs.
Even more than before we need more council housing, more spacious council housing.
Ending of PDR
Rent control for private rentals and housing associations.

I have noticed more eateries and coffee shops & bars with free Wi-Fi, where customers can work. This is pleasant. I’ve also seen more people spending time outdoors, and meeting up in public places outdoors - I like this too, and hope it continues to flourish.
More nice green seating areas, use of screening/ green rooms for groups and families would improve this.

Agree with Glasme, We had our local Homebase shut down to make way for the build of tower blocks of flats. All those local jobs are lost and those people will likely have to commute or drive to find alternative work. Not only that, if we want to buy stuff for home/garden we have to now drive to get them from non-local other stores or get delivery. Our only local HW store was shut by the owner citing hostile parking restrictions at the local high street.
So many commenters think the olly solution to congested roads is to prevent people using cars. So unimaginative. The real solution to reduce car dependency is to redesign our suburban areas for true local working, not dormitory commuting. Remove the NEED for people to drive to work etc. That starts and ends with planning. I lobbied our council for a convenience store to be placed in a local social housing development nearby. I was told, "not cost effective". So I remain with my closest convenient store 20mins walk away.

(1) Vehicle pollution needs cutting so that levels are legal and not bad for health .
(2) Household salaries need to be equalised . More tax on the rich , increased minimum wage to stabilise household expenditure .
(3) Maximise homeworking . I know it is not good for businesses near the workplace but London's population is set to rise by 2,000,000 by 2050 . Localisation of work and leisure is a good idea . It reduces pollution and congestion .
(4) Provide optimum levels of public transport -- not too many or too few services for each bus , train , tube , river service .

The Pandemic revitalised our local high street. It has many essential businesses and there were a lot more people working from home spending money locally.
More people in and around our high street post-pandemic has increased because of more people realising working from home, at least some of time has increased local cafe & pub business, increased.

In Greater London people want homes with access to open spaces, a small garden or patio and NOT high density, poor quality housing where the developer maximises their financial gain. For those able to work from home / hybrid, they need space for a proper desk / workstation otherwise there'll be a huge rise in RSI type injuries from working from a bed or kitchen worktop.