I would like to wish all our contacts a Happy Christmas and best wishes for the New Year. It cannot be a worse one than this year surely!

In this traditional season of goodwill, it seems rather thin on the ground of late. We need fewer arguments over Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and other attacks on the role of vehicles on our roads, driven by dogma on all sides. More compromise and consultation are required. It’s surely not impossible!

There is one item of news that remains to tell you about. We submitted a Freedom of Information Act request on the 6th of November to Lewisham Council. It asked a simple question which was basically “how many complaints did the Council and Councillors receive over the LTNs in the borough”. They have 20 working days to respond to FOI requests but so far have not done so nor provided any excuse or reason for the delay. So we have submitted a complaint to the Information Commissioners Office. The Council is blatantly breaching the law of the land.

I suggest they are deliberately avoiding responding to avoid embarrassment, as Mayor Damien Egan did when responding to a similar question at one of his meetings. I consider this disgraceful behaviour and this issue will be pursued.

We will be sending out another survey about road conditions and your views on the current road closures after the New Year and when the very tight lock-down is relaxed. The latter is obviously having some impact on the traffic congestion.

In the meantime, if you are still unhappy with congestion at particular points, how the road closures are hampering your movements or you are collecting PCNs then send your complaints to traffic@lewisham.gov.uk

Otherwise keep well and have a good Xmas. Our campaign will resume in the New Year.

Roger Lawson