Mayor spells out 15-year vision

Mr Livingstone wants to encourage development to the east of the city

Mayor Ken Livingstone's vision for London's development over the next 15 years has been published.

His plan outlines everything from jobs and transport to the environment and culture.

It also deals with how to provide London's housing needs, especially affordable homes for key workers such as nurses, police and teachers.

Targets include the building of 30,000 new homes each year, with half of them "made affordable".

Mr Livingstone said the need for more homes arose from an expected growth in population of 800,000 in the next 20 years.

He wants most of them to be located in the east of the city to help much-needed regeneration and in the central area, where he wants developers to use high-density housing.

He also wants more than half a million new jobs to be created, again mostly in east and central London and principally in the financial and business services sector.

Transport links

He said he wants investment steered towards re-using old or under-developed sites, particularly those in the east.

East London is also the main focus of London's bid to stage the 2012 Olympic Games and winning the bid would be a major catalyst for change.

Other areas where housing and businesses will be encouraged include King's Cross and Paddington, where major transport links are located, the Isle of Dogs, Elephant and Castle and the Upper Lea Valley.

He reiterated the need for improved public transport with plans for extensions to the Croydon Tramlink and the East London line, as well as the Thameslink 2000 and Crossrail projects.

Last year the deputy prime minister John Prescott announced more than £400m of public money would be spent to create 120,000 homes and 180,000 jobs in the Thames Gateway area by 2016.

It led to objections from the Campain to Protect Rural England (CPRE) which said it feared the destruction of the Green Belt and urban sprawl.