The changes in the Lee Green Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) have now been in for a couple of days. Please let us have your comments on them. Have they reduced the traffic congestion on the main roads for example?
Incidentally Mayor Damien Egan was asked a question by a councillor at the Overview and Scrutiny Committee the night before last as to how much the changes cost. He ducked answering it. But he did spend a lot of time effectively giving a party-political broadcast which is not what such Committees should be about. For example he said the Covid-19 epidemic was solely down to the Government for not following Keir Starmer’s advice, a somewhat exaggerated view of events surely? No country in Europe has avoided outbreaks.
There is one thing for certain though, installing the LTN and road closures will have cost many hundreds of thousands of pounds and removing them will cost further very large sums. That’s while the Mayor complained about how short of money the Council was with budgets having to be cut yet again. The Council may have received some funding from TfL and central Government for the LTN but that still means they wasted taxpayers’ money because the funding ultimately came from you!
Opposition to Road Closures Spreads
Opposition to road closures across London is spreading because LTNs have proved to be anything but Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and have worsened traffic congestion in many boroughs.
A number of grass-roots campaign groups have sprung into existence to oppose these measures in boroughs such as Lewisham, Lambeth, Islington, Croydon, Ealing, Waltham Forest and several others – see this new web page for a list of those known to the ABD: https://www.freedomfordrivers.org/london-road-closures.htm
They typically have collected thousands of signatures opposing the road closures, and two of them (Croydon and Ealing) have already filed for Judicial Reviews in the High Court. They have also run public street demonstrations despite the current Covid-19 restrictions which shows the strength of feeling against these schemes.
Even Conservative MPs have complained about the Government’s backing for such schemes. See this ABD press release for more information: https://www.abd.org.uk/press-release-mps-call-on-shapps-to-end-the-war-on-drivers/
Ambulance Delays and Crime Problems
One of the common complaints about LTNs is that road closures delay or block emergency service vehicles. Delays to ambulances can be critical in saving lives. This is one comment received from the London Ambulance Service: “Changes to road layouts, traffic management schemes, and road closures all have the potential to impede our response to the most critically ill people and could delay life-saving treatments or conveyance to the nearest emergency department. Our preference is to avoid hard closures of roads with planters or lockable bollards by using alternative enforcement methods, such as camera enforced filters”. But camera systems just enable local boroughs to generate profits for which they have a very strong incentive because of cuts to funding they are facing.
The dangers of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods as regards the rise in crime and inability of police to respond quickly was highlighted in the experience of Moss Side in Manchester in this blog article: https://abdlondon.wordpress.com/2020/10/30/the-consequences-of-shutting-out-traffic/ . Modal filters block police vehicles while motorcyclists, scooter riders or cyclists can travel through them easily. This is not a recipe for a safe neighbourhood.
Latest Comments Received and Petition Signatures
We have recently submitted the latest list of petition signatures to the Mayor of Lewisham – well over 11,000 now. No response has been received to date.
We also submitted a list of all direct comments received and you can see a file of those here: https://www.freedomfordrivers.org/Lewisham-Comments-Received.pdf . Reading those will give you a good impression of the anger and distress the road closures have caused.
Croydon Streetspace Consultation
One of the boroughs that have brought in road closures is Croydon – specifically in the Crystal Palace and Norwood areas. These closures have also affected residents who live in adjacent boroughs such as Bromley and Lewisham. With a strong campaign being run to remove the closures, Croydon have decided to do a public consultation, perhaps to pre-empt the legal challenge. Anyone who lives in Croydon or who visits the area can respond. Go here to complete it: See https://new.croydon.gov.uk/croydon-streetspace for details – see bottom right for the Crystal Palace and South Norwood scheme. This is the opportunity to have your say so please complete it!
Lack of public consultations is one of the major complaints about LTNs which have been introduced without consultation using the spurious excuse of responding quickly to the Covid-19 epidemic. With the good news of a vaccine becoming available another excuse will need to be invented.
The Croydon consultation is not exactly unbiased but it’s better than nothing. And it may be better than the Commonplace system which can be easily manipulated by pressure groups because submissions are anonymous and multiple responses from the same person can be submitted. Commonplace is not an alternative to a proper public consultation which needs to include those who do not use the internet.
Roger Lawson
Tel: 020-8295-0378
Email: RL2019@abd.org.uk