Video: Daniel Moylan on London's growth, vision and moving Heathrow

Coping with a potential 11M population in the capital by 2030 means planning today, for the housing, transport, power required and moving Heathrow out of west London, says Daniel Moylan, chair of the Mayor's Design Advisory Group.

With the London Mayoral elections just none months away, the challenges facing whoever is voted in to replace Boris Johnson are complex and challenging, he said.

“The next Mayor’s most important role as the planning authority is to look forward,” he said speaking at the Base London event this week. “The key question is how do you build the infrastructure how do you build the homes, how do you create the jobs that will sustain the city.”

“Whatever Howard Davies says – and I think he is largely irrelevant now to this – they will have to face up to that and the government will have to face up to it and something will be done otherwise we will have a major hub airport but it will be in Amsterdam," Daniel Moylan

The London 2050 Infrastructure Plan is a great start he said but it “needs refinement, funding and delivery and needs a certain sense of urgency in dispatch”.

Resolving the on-going airport capacity debate is also crucial to the capital’s future, he said, and as the main force behind the Thames Estuary airport plan dismissed by the Davies Airport Commission, Moylan remains wedded to the need to move the hub away from  

“It is simple – we need a major hub airport with four runways. The sad fact is that can’t be at Heathrow. And like any business that has out grown its premises [Heathrow] has to face up to that fact. In order to grow they will have to move,” he said, speaking ahead of publication of the Davies recommendation

“Whatever Howard Davies says – and I think he is largely irrelevant now to this – they will have to face up to that and the government will have to face up to it and something will be done otherwise we will have a major hub airport but it will be in Amsterdam,” he added. “I don t think and Boris doesn’t think that is a basis on which London can successfully thrive.”