“Dear Petitioner
Thank you for the petition submitted on the change.org website about my role in London over the forthcoming year.
I am very pleased to have been elected as the Member of Parliament for the London seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. As well as representing my constituency, I am happy to reassure you that I will continue to serve all Londoners as Mayor until May 2016. As you will know, members of the government also perform this dual role.
It has been an enormous privilege to serve as Mayor of London since 2008. I am incredibly proud of the things that have been achieved in London over the last seven years. Back in 2008 there seemed a genuine risk that London would be badly damaged by the financial crisis, and would lose ground to our competitors around the world – not just New York, but Shanghai, Dubai, Mumbai and others.
Since then the opposite has happened. We have cut council tax; revolutionised our creaking transport infrastructure; made our streets and homes safer; and by working with business to create over 100,000 apprenticeships for Londoners, we have made huge strides on skilling up our future workforce. We have more people in employment than at any time in our history, and the number of NEETS, those young people not in employment, education or training, is at a 25 year low. And of course we are delivering a truly great legacy after the success of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Of course great challenges remain, not least the provision of housing for a rapidly growing population, but this year City Hall completed more than 17,000 new affordable homes, and across the city more homes have been built in 2015 than in any year since 1982. We will have built 100,000 new affordable homes since I was first elected.
We have given thousands of young Londoners the opportunity to put a foot on the property ladder through my First Steps housing programme, introduced a London Rental Standard to protect renters, and brought in a Mayoral Concordat with developers to ensure properties are marketed first here in London.
The challenge remains but as a city we can provide 400,000 new homes in the next 10 years on 38 opportunity areas across the city on brownfield sites.
I can assure you that I plan to continue working to make London the greatest city on earth right through my Mayoralty. We have a massive programme of work in train - from putting in new bridges and tunnels across the Thames, creating more pocket parks, spreading the London Living Wage and regenerating yet more of London.
I will be putting every ounce of effort into this programme until 4 May 2016. It is enormous but it is all doable.
Yours sincerely
Boris Johnson
Mayor of London
”
