Ex-Tory mayoral candidate Natalie Campbell to run as independent

Natalie Campbell is the CEO of a bottled-water company and chancellor of the University of Westminster

A former longlisted Conservative mayoral hopeful has said she will run as an independent candidate in the elections in May.

Natalie Campbell, a CEO and university chancellor, says she will run for mayor of London as a "centrist, middle-of-the-road candidate".

Ms Campbell has pledged to survey 100,000 Londoners on what matters most to them.

She will use the What London Wants survey results to build her manifesto.

Ms Campbell has already committed to putting the proposed Bakerloo line extension "firmly back on the table", saying it was "madness" that south-east London was cut off from the Tube network.

She added that the scheme, which would see the line extended from its current terminus at Elephant & Castle down to Lewisham and potentially beyond, was particularly important for unlocking more housing in London as "that is where a lot of the development potential is".

Ms Campbell failed to make the mayoral candidates' shortlist for the Conservative Party, with London Assembly member Susan Hall eventually being chosen as the candidate to take on Sadiq Khan.

She said the Tories had made "a poor choice" by selecting Ms Hall, adding that she was "a terrible candidate" who would fight "a dog-whistle campaign".

Who are the mayoral candidates?

Five other people have been chosen as candidates for the mayoral elections, set to take place on 2 May. They are:

• Rob Blackie, Liberal Democrats

• Howard Cox, Reform UK

• Zoe Garbett, Green Party

• Susan Hall, Conservative Party

• Sadiq Khan, Labour Party

Speaking about the issue of housing, Ms Campbell said it was "reductive" to think the answer to the housing crisis was to build "more, more, more".

Instead, she said London "needs the right homes in the right places" and must create a "credible rental market" in order to avoid "the issues we've got at the moment in terms of rental prices absolutely soaring".

She added she would not seek the power to impose rent controls, something Mayor Sadiq Khan has long advocated, as "you can't just throw a tax at people and expect the market to shift".

On policing, Ms Campbell, who is the CEO of a bottled-water company and chancellor of the University of Westminster, said she was "committed to the idea that transformation and reform might need to happen by shutting the Met down" as attempts to improve its culture have been "too little, too late".

"Communities are furious with the police," she added. "That is not going to change in a year, it's not going to change in four years, with the sort of review process that we have."

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