On 5 May 2016 London votes for a new Mayor and Assembly. With no incumbent standing, this will be the first election in 16 years in which London is guaranteed to get a new Mayor, and so a fresh start.

This manifesto offers a brief overview of what we see as the main challenges and opportunities facing London, and sets out a bold but practical policy platform for addressing these.

Centre for London looks at London in the round – we try to understand how economic, social and environmental issues fit together and develop ideas to make London more prosperous, inclusive and sustainable. For this reason, this manifesto is wide-ranging.

Key recommendations

The manifesto calls on the new Mayor to:

• Review London’s green belt to allow for carefully planned development while enhancing and improving the green belt’s environmental functions.
• Find space for more homes in existing neighbourhoods, and push for higher density development around stations.
• Introduce city-wide road pricing and promote car sharing, to reduce congestion and air pollution and create better public spaces for walking and cycling.
• Create a more open and technologically engaged London government, and turn London into a ‘sharing city’ – to enhance civic participation and embrace the problem-solving potential of technology.
• Launch a London-wide campaign for devolution.
• Take a more strategic, pan-London approach to low-income housing, with the Mayor and the boroughs using pooled developer contributions to maximise the supply of affordable housing by building in less expensive areas – thereby creating more balanced, mixed-income communities.