Brian Paddick, Mayor of London candidate for Liberal Democrats, answers your questions:

Q: What would you do as Mayor to improve paid employment prospects of disabled volunteers, who are all too frequently relegated to unemployment-related benefits and expenses due to lack of project funding? Alan Wheatley, working life-long disabled volunteer.

A: As Mayor I’ll sit down with representatives of disabled volunteers and their project managers to sort out how to gain and secure project funding for deserving causes.  It’s totally counter-productive that projects that do get funding only get it for the short-term and then spend half their time seeking continuation funding. Charitable funding is in a serious mess and as London Mayor I would take a lead in sorting it out.

Q: We were promised a world class transport system from the first mayoral elections, but life on the tube has gone from bad to worse. How do you propose to bring London’s Victorian age transport system to the 21st century? - Posted by Raxa Mehta.

A: We need to start building the Cross River Tram, connecting north and south London with a spur down Oxford Street. Ultra-light tram routes (which don’t need overhead wires or costly excavations) could “feed” the core CRT. Tube upgrades need to concentrate on track, signalling and new trains so we end delays and cancellations. Express coach services should connect outer London town centres.

Q: As a London resident I have noticed an increase in hostility from the recently immigrated population towards the culture, lifestyle and the customs of the settled population of London.
Would you: as London mayor: encourage the settled population to change the way they live their lives to appease the new population or would you prefer to encourage the new population to learn and respect London’s cosmopolitan but British culture. And how would you go about it? - Posted by Genevieve.

A: As the borough police commander I chose to go out and talk to our diverse communities and listen to what they had to say. Where there is hostility it’s usually to do with misunderstanding and not mixing. The London Mayor can give great leadership by promoting events which work actively to involve and engage both the settled populations of London and its immigrant communities. Neither should need to change the way they live their lives as long as they act respectfully and live within the law.

Q: I work as a district nurse for Southwark PCT. We have to visit patients within the congestion area on a daily basis to administer various medical treatments. We have to pay the congestion charge, claim this back from our PCT who in turn reclaim this from TFL. If a nurse forgets to purchase a ticket and accrues a fine it has to be paid from his or her own pocket. One nurse last week had to pay over £160 in fines. Careless? No, not when we are dealing with seriously ill and dying patients. We cannot travel on public transport with medical records, body fluids and medical equipment. The sick people of Southwark are being penalised as nurses are loathe to visit the congestion area in fear of possible penalties. We are undertaking an essential service but if we were mini-cabs or vehicles for ‘pre-booked’ hire we would be exempt from the charge. This will never, ever make any sense to me. Please somebody help us - Posted by John Bailey.

A: New technology is the answer. Transport for London have run successful trials in Southwark of a “tag and beacon” system that has worked for years in Oslo and Singapore and automatically deducts the charge from a nominated bank account thus removing all risk of “forgetting” and expensive fines. It ought not to be beyond the wit of IT systems to alert the PCT every time a nurse makes such a payment — but certainly we could introduce automatic deduction. Only the Labour government is holding this up.

Q: As the heart of the nation, London’s arterial roads that transport the nation’s economic life blood have chronic blockages that impair its health and the health of all who use them. Under Mayor Livingstone, congestion charges (statins), new larger buses (cholesterol) , more and more traffic lights (heart valves) and narrowing of the arteries by constructing more and more granite-edged islands and wider pavements have made matters far worse not better. Major surgery is needed.
Do any of the candidates have plans for seriously revamping TfL, changing the policy (and attitudes) to, for example, adopt tried and tested Tokyo methods for preventing arterial blockages - all road work at night and especially large holes covered with plates during the day. Do they agree with me that we must move with the times and construct elevated sections of road like the old Mancunian Way (say above The Highway, Thames Street and the Embankment) and again, emulate Tokyo’s road system (but do it better) where there are heart bypasses for through traffic built on stilts or in tunnels? - Posted by graham mellor.

A: We certainly need to be much tougher on controlling the utilities digging up our streets and we also need a review of whether we need quite so many traffic lights. Road work at night would be hugely more expensive but it is how we work on the Tube network. We need to revisit the ban on deliveries at night. Central government is unlikely to fund “Mancunian Ways” for London, and I’d prefer that funding to go on effective upgrades to public transport so the need to drive in central London is cut to a minimum.