Labour has a chance to transform the capital

 London is at a critical juncture. The city will face an election on its future in less than 18 months, and it will be the first time since the mayoralty was created that an incumbent will not be standing. This chance for reflection offers a canvas to explore the type of city we want, not just in the next five years but in decades to come.

London is not some abstract notion; it is a living, breathing city, home to millions and the workplace of millions more. Yet increasingly few are able to live affordably in vast swaths of the capital. One of the biggest challenges for decades, this question of its liveability is also undermining its future viability and economic strength.

This cannot be lightly dismissed. London’s population and economy are both bigger than more than half of European countries and is set to grow further still.

Because of this scale and reach there are huge opportunities to be a world leader and innovator. Just as the first underground system in the world started in London, the capital has the chance to lead in being a truly liveable city, agglomerating the benefits of its population and diversity, harnessing its history and creativity, to create a modern, exciting, dynamic, working, breathing, sustainable, interesting city.

A traditional approach will not be enough on its own. London has an important voice in the debate about decentralisation of powers and there is a huge opportunity for the Labour and Co-operative parties in London to lead the discussion about London’s future and indeed to take that conversation into every community. It means not resting after 7 May but using the following 12 months to reach into every area of London life, every area of policy and thinking and reimagining what our city can be like and how it should be run.

Labour’s successful mayoral candidate will need to demonstrate that they are willing to trust the people of London with key decisions on the direction of future services. Why should our neighbours, our friends not have a direct say in the running of services that matter most? Healthcare, financial services, schools, energy, transport, housing – all would benefit from the wide diversity of Londoners having greater connection and control.

Safety first, or a huge lurch in one ideological direction or another, might still see Labour get over the 2016 mayoral line, but neither will really prepare Londoners for the challenges our city is facing, or the need for a greater number of decent jobs and enhanced liveability.

Ambitious new forms of service delivery, cooperative and community-based that give power to Londoners so they can have more control over their city, will open up new opportunities for better outcomes. They will support a dynamic London that helps address the capital’s very real inequalities and disparities.

Despite the challenges, we can imagine how people would live affordably in our city. New models like co-owned, cooperative rental housing – offering security and affordability, and aligning tenant and landlord interest – and the mayor actually building homes directly alongside councils and the private sector, can drive a step-change in the delivery of genuine community housing. It could additionally bring a return back to London’s public institutions, utilising more effectively, for example, Transport for London’s large property assets or development sites like Old Oak Common.

If Berliners can imagine controlling their city’s electricity grid to help their citizens own and get a better price for the energy they have created themselves, surely Londoners can expect their mayor to drive a new push for community and cooperative energy here. And why not London as the first city national park, connecting all the city’s green spaces, including a new major urban orchard, and a world-leader for green building design?

A liveable city is about having a sense of community where we live and a stake in what happens. It could be central to a mayoralty, encouraging the activity of community centres and local organisations, leveraging the support from local councils but also creating new forms of funding and assistance too.

We could champion the capital’s creative core, with new art schemes with artists renewing forgotten urban spaces, new cooperative art spaces to nurture and anchor new talent spaces, boosting the cultural offer in outer London as well as Zone 1, and bringing the European capital of culture to London. We could recast hospitals and the transport system so that more Londoners join foundation hospitals to have real leverage over big decisions including land sales, and similarly TfL customers over tube and rail fares or how significant assets are used.

London needs to rethink where its finance comes from to meet the aspirations of Londoners. Initiatives by Labour authorities like Camden working with peer-to-peer lenders like Funding Circle can inspire new mutual approaches to investing in businesses. Other leading world cities have their own investment vehicles. This could encourage the range of cooperative investment vehicles that have ballooned in the United States. It could also have a social investment arm to spur community ventures and enterprises. Can Londoners be offered opportunities to invest directly in projects such as social housing schemes or public transport as happens in other countries? And why can the capital’s credit unions and community banks not come together to create its own regional bank, run by London for Londoners?

With competition for jobs between global citizens intensifying and automation posing significant challenges, the city needs to be creating decent jobs in the industries of the future, enhancing the role and leverage of our great universities and scientific or research institutions like the Francis Crick Institute, which will be the largest biomedical research centre in Europe.

A more cooperative city with a mayor determined to strengthen the power of Londoners to help run their own communities and their own services will be fundamental to making London a fairer, more liveable and an even more dynamic capital city.

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Gareth Thomas MP is chair of the Co-operative party. Jake Sumner is a former councillor in the London borough of Camden and a member of the Co-operative party