Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, answers your questions on affordable homes, offshoring jobs and empty office blocks.

I hope you can think of some solution and implement to fix this "offshoring" problem. I work for one of the FTSE100 listed companies and they have already created more than 5,000 offshore jobs. Yesterday they announced cutting another 1,000 jobs by creating them offshore. This is just one example. All the companies, big or small, are offshoring highly paid IT and backoffice jobs.

Boris Johnson: We must invest in and promote London if we are to remain a desirable location for big business.

This means continuing to invest heavily in our infrastructure to provide business opportunities, and in skills and training programmes to ensure there is a deep pool of talent so that businesses can grow and succeed.

This will not only help us retain our competitive edge it will also ready us to take full advantage of the economic upturn when it arrives.

New investment also plays a vital part in keeping London’s economic fires burning. I’ve just unveiled an economic action plan for ‘Think London’ which encourages more overseas companies to locate in the capital.

The plan includes an extension to ‘Touchdown London’ offering overseas companies up to 12 months of free office space and facilities and the use of a dedicated advisor to support them through the process of establishing a London operation.

London still remains the top place in the world to do business and the news that it is now cheaper to live and work here than in New York only adds to our attractiveness.

I remain wholly confident that London will not only come through this recession intact but emerge an even stronger and more exciting place to do business than ever before.

Why isn’t there enough affordable/council homes being built? People in poverty need decent homes then they can get back into society, back to work (which the Government needs to sort out).

BJ: I agree the lack of affordable homes in London is a major concern. That is why I’m investing £5billion over the next three years to deliver 50,000 more affordable homes, many of which will be in south London.

The investment will also provide more alternative routes to home ownership and boost the construction sector in London during the economic downturn.

A permanent home can have an immense impact on the quality of someone’s life. That’s why a sizeable chunk of this investment will be put towards cutting the numbers of people living in temporary accommodation.

It will deliver thousands of new homes for social rent and introducing more flexible schemes for social tenants who aspire to own their home or want to move elsewhere in the capital.

In the past twenty years many firms have left the regional centres that ring London like Kingston and Hounslow. Many office blocks stand empty and few ones have been built in recent times due to the lack of demand.

At the same time people are forced to travel long distances into the West End and Canary Wharf on expensive and uncomfortable trains.

Is there anyway to regenerate outer London and encourage more wealth creation? Most of the regional centres have just become retail and leisure based, and thus limiting future growth.

BJ: I’m committed to realising the full economic potential of outer London, which has been ignored for far to long to the detriment of all Londoners.

In November I set up the Outer London Commission, led by William McKee, to investigate what needs to be done to make this happen. They will be reporting back to me in June with their recommendations.

One of the key ideas the Commission is investigating is the viability of creating up to five economic ‘hubs’ in outer London which would allow people to live much nearer to their work and ease the long daily commute.

Areas such as Kingston and Hounslow are being considered as possible locations along with Croydon which is already starting to attract major new businesses opportunities.

You announced a range of programmes to support businesses. This was welcome.

But the programmes rely on businesses going to your websites or attending workshops often based in central London. Businesses are often too busy keeping their heads above water to take advantage of these programmes.

Surely it would be better to also offer support, which is delivered at the businesses premises at a time convenient to the business?

BJ: I’m determined to help London business not only survive the current economic downturn but ready them to grab hold of the opportunities the upturn will bring when it comes.

The LDA offers a mixture of services, including some individual support. But for any service to really work businesses have to know about it.

That’s why they have launched a campaign to make businesses aware of the help they have to offer – from online resources, to seminars to individual advice.

As a result of this campaign calls to Business Link increased by an incredible 70 per cent, with over 5,000 calls in January alone, a sure sign that information is getting out there to businesses.

I’d encourage any businesses in south London that needs advice to contact the LDA and take full advantage of all the services they have to offer. |

The Mayor recently announced he wanted to scrap the Low Emission zone third phase, which was due to affect vans and minibuses from October 2010.

How confident are you that this proposal will be stopped? I am sure other small businesses and the self-employed would welcome this.

I am a self-employed gardener with 95% of my customers living in London Borough of Richmond.

My business involves me operating in the low emission zone 7 days a week all year round. The worst part of this is that my van, which will serve me for many more years’ service, would be non-compliant and I would be forced to buy a new vehicle and would not be able to sell my van as it would not be compliant.

BJ: I want to do all I can to ease the burden of the economic downturn on businesses in London.

The first two phases of the Low Emission Zone worked well tackling the worst polluters in the capital. However the third phase would simply have clobbered London’s small businesses, the backbone of the capital’s economy, with a bill that in the current economic climate could put many of them out of existence.

I am beginning the legal processes necessary to stop the third phase and I am confident that the new course we have set will find a balance between London's environmental and economic needs and that we will be able to lower emissions in more imaginative ways.