Zoom Meeting
Yesterday we held a Zoom meeting for supporters of our campaign against road closures in Lewisham. You can read a report of the meeting in this pdf document (click on to access): https://www.freedomfordrivers.org/Zoom-Meeting-Report-2020-09-05.pdf . The meeting seemed to be a success although this was the first time we have run such a large on-line event. We will probably run more in future and include invites to people who have signed this petition.
Latest Council Announcement
Lewisham have published on CommonPlace their “monitoring strategy” to identify the impact of the road closures. They plan to cover:
Traffic counts; Traffic speeds; Air quality; ANPR camera compliance levels; Feedback via councillors, commonplace and public enquiries; Bus journey times and Emergency service response times. They claim to already have some “base levels” for such indicators as air pollution and traffic levels gained before the epidemic lock-down but they do say “we do not have all the baseline air quality data we would do in normal circumstances” so it remains to be seen whether any analysis is a fair one. It also clearly indicates that they are not going to listen to residents’ complaints and will keep the existing road closures in place for many months yet because it will take that long to collect the data and produce a report.
Enjoy is perhaps the right word to use here!
Grant Shapps Backtracking
The Government, and Transport Minister Grant Shapps, have caused many of the problems with statutory guidance that supported road closures and other measures that have created traffic congestion all over the country. But he has written an article published in the Daily Telegraph today where he seems to be recanting.
The Telegraph article states: “The Secretary of State for Transport says he will personally intervene to scrap the worst examples where local authorities have ruined high streets and residential roads in an attempt to build cycle lanes and promote social distancing for pedestrians.
His comments come after a series of petitions attracted thousands of signatures from people across the country who fear councils are pandering to the cycle lobby.
Campaign groups representing the disabled, small business owners, pollution activists and motorists have criticised the schemes for being rushed through with little or no consultation”.
See https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/05/grant-shapps-tells-councils-stop-abusing-250m-fund-meant-green/ for the full article.
Readers should write to their Member of Parliament to complain about the past actions of Grant Shapps and request the Statutory Guidance supporting these measures be withdrawn.
Keep Spreading the Word
It’s not too late to get your neighbours, friends, relations and work colleagues to sign the petition. Send them a message containing this link: http://chng.it/f8PH2L2LZq or simply forward this message.
Roger Lawson
Tel: 020-8295-0378
Email: RL2019@abd.org.uk
I will let you know of further news as it arises.