Latest news with #lowtrafficneighbourhoods
The Guardian
21-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Reform UK fulfils pledge to scrap LTNs in its council areas as none exist
Reform UK's pledge to remove all low-traffic neighbourhoods from the council areas it controls looks to be achieved in record time after the 10 local authorities said they do not actually have any in place. Zia Yusuf, Reform UK's chair, said last week there would be a 'large-scale reversal' of existing LTNs in the 10 areas across England where the party won control of the councils in local elections on 1 May. 'We view these schemes with the same suspicion as mass immigration and net zero,' Yusuf told the Telegraph, adding: 'You can expect, if you live in a Reform council, for there to be a much higher bar for any proposals for LTNs and for the large-scale reversal of these existing LTNs.' The Guardian contacted the councils now run by Reform – Derbyshire, Doncaster, Durham, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, North Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and West Northamptonshire – and they all said they had no such schemes. LTNs are traffic interventions that filter smaller, residential roads using either physical barriers like bollards and planters or numberplate-recognition cameras to prevent motor vehicles using them as through routes. While the wider idea of using what are known as modal filters to make residential roads safer for walking and cycling has been used intermittently for decades, the branding as LTNs usually refers to schemes introduced from 2020, when the Conservative government encouraged councils to install them. Some of these LTNs were put in quickly, bringing complaints about traffic displaced to boundary roads and some congestion. However, studies of LTNs, including one commissioned by Rishi Sunak's LTN-sceptical government, have generally found they work well and are popular. Asked about the lack of LTNs in the areas they run, a Reform spokesperson pointed to mapping data showing the proportion of roads within the council areas not open to through-traffic. However, this would also count longer-established non-LTN roads without through traffic, such as cul-de-sacs and housing estates. It is not known whether Reform plans to open these up as through routes. Reform has also pledged to sack council staff working on diversity issues or efforts connected to net zero, although it is unknown how many staff this would actually involve. Some councils, such as Lincolnshire, have said they have no diversity staff. A Liberal Democrat source said: 'Reform are utterly clueless about how to run a council. From councillors who won't take up their seats to schemes that don't exist, it's clear that they don't understand the needs of their communities. 'Now they have some power, they need to learn how to Google things first. Liberal Democrats will be holding Reform's feet to the fire and standing up for our communities.'
The Guardian
18-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Evidence shows that LTNs improve people's lives
We were dismayed to read Joseph Harker's article (Opposing LTNs doesn't make you a 'culture war' petrol-head. Just look at what happened in Lambeth, 14 May). We are a group of Lambeth residents campaigning for safer, healthier streets for everyone in our borough. Harker's arguments simply don't fit with either the benefits of low-traffic neighbourhoods that we see every day, or with the increasing body of evidence that they improve people's lives. Rather than simply shuffling traffic between side roads and main roads, as Harker asserts, low‑traffic neighbourhoods in Lambeth and elsewhere lead to significant overall drops across the whole area. Councils implementing LTNs have rightly studied their impacts on boundary roads particularly closely, and a comprehensive review of LTN evaluations found that the average change in traffic on boundary roads is negligible; and there's reason to believe that this may become more favourable over time, as behaviour patterns change. Moreover, evidence shows that collisions and injuries are also reduced significantly within low-traffic neighbourhoods, and do not increase on surrounding roads. Tired tropes about roads being 'cut off' are demonstrably untrue – every road within an LTN is accessible by motor vehicle. It's rat‑running which is prevented. Nor is there evidence that low-traffic neighbourhoods increase pollution. On the contrary, separate studies using varying methodologies have found evidence that overall levels of car use and/or car ownership fall among LTN residents. This includes evidence from Lambeth. Harker's article also fails to mention the other low-traffic neighbourhoods in Lambeth such as Railton Road, Brixton Hill, and Oval – all of which have created safer, healthier neighbourhoods without causing issues on boundary roads – let alone the many other successful examples of LTNs and other traffic calming measures across London and Bromwich and Heather GlassLambeth Living Streets Thank you, Joseph Harker, for highlighting how Lambeth council has 'ignored petitions and public protests in a desire to claim a green identity in the absence of any other notable achievement'. Residents on Kennington Park estate at the Oval, Lambeth, are being held prisoner by the imposition of a low-traffic neighbourhood called Kennington Oval Reimagined. For two hours a day, many of us are not allowed deliveries or taxis, plumbers or health visitors. Previously quiet streets on the periphery of the estate are rammed with large supermarket and construction lorries. And the supposedly traffic-free roads, filled with overgrown planters and uncollected rubbish, are a magnet for speeding ebikers who endanger pedestrians and children. I want clean air and a healthy neighbourhood. The council's continuing expansion of LTNs is having the opposite effect and is increasingly TwelvesFormer leader, Lambeth council; chair, Kennington Park estate tenants' and residents' association Re Joseph Harker's article, the trouble is that, to reframe an argument from Brexit, while not all opponents of low-traffic neighbourhoods are culture war petrol-heads, surely all culture war petrol-heads are vigorously opposed to LTNs. The high court decision against Lambeth council has unsurprisingly been greeted gleefully by the rightwing press and its more extreme online counterparts as signalling the end of LTNs. And it will doubtless only make it harder for local authorities to transition to streets that are cleaner, greener, friendlier to pedestrians and, yes, that encourage children to ride their bikes to school. Clearly, efforts to improve people's quality of life by cutting vehicle use in towns and cities need to be introduced sensitively and sensibly. But court rulings that limit councils' abilities to make the – already difficult to implement – changes that are needed if residents are to experience less pollution, fewer accidents and a calmer street life aren't helping the ClewsLewes, East Sussex In the social media-driven, polarised world we now live in, how refreshing to read Joseph Harker's balanced and sympathetic article about the challenges that people with legitimate concerns about low-traffic neighbourhoods have faced for the past five years. Many, if not most, of us who have campaigned against LTNs have done so not because we want to drive our cars wherever and whenever we want or because we hate cyclists, but because we can't support the social and environmental injustice of pushing traffic from our roads on to already congested and more polluted 'boundary roads' where typically people on lower incomes live. We can't abide the discrimination against disabled and elderly car-dependent neighbours who are forced to travel miles further to get anywhere, and we are appalled at the damage to jobs and livelihoods that road closures have on small shops and businesses. But whenever we suggest better and fairer ways of discouraging car use, we are not listened to. Only the council knows what works, we are told. Only our councillors know what's best for us. As one of the 15 community groups who joined forces in January to lobby the government to ensure that councils cannot impose LTNs without the consent of local people, we are heartened to know that there are columnists on the Guardian, like Joseph Harker, who understand residents' genuine concerns and support our right to be heard. Thank AldwinckleCo-founder, One Dulwich Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
The Guardian
14-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Opposing LTNs doesn't make you a 'culture war' petrol-head. Just look at what happened in Lambeth
Should cars be illegal? Are drivers evil? The way some councils have been imposing 'low-traffic neighbourhoods' over the past five years, it seems their leaders definitely think so. Not so much because they want to cut traffic (everybody does) but because of the way they have responded to people who object to the LTNs' impact on their everyday lives. So I was more than happy when, last week, the high court ruled that Lambeth council in south London had acted unlawfully in ignoring local objections to its latest scheme. I live in another part of Labour-run Lambeth and have seen first-hand how the council repeatedly ignores public concerns over other LTNs in the borough. Residential roads have been cut off, causing huge traffic queues, increased petrol fumes and inconvenience to ordinary people going about their lives. Those affected include pensioners and people with disabilities facing restricted access to their homes; pedestrians and cyclists endangered by increased traffic; businesses cut off from their customers; and time-poor parents with young children whose school runs have doubled in length. And when there are roadworks (step forward, Thames Water!) or accidents or breakdowns, the streets regularly become gridlocked. Just Stop Oil protesters would get jail time for causing this kind of chaos. Objections by local people have been brushed aside, their concerns dismissed as 'culture war' bigotry. This is the borough that was one of the staunchest pro-remain areas in the country. There's no 'culture war' here, just a council that has ignored petitions and public protests in a desire to claim a green identity in the absence of any other notable achievement. I have no ideological objection to LTNs. I want there to be less traffic. I love cycling and used to take my kids to school by bike whenever I could. There may be places where LTNs work, and I can't speak for other parts of the country where they've been introduced. But the experience in Lambeth shows how evidence can be ignored and opposition swept to the margins. Many LTNs were introduced in 2020, without any consultation, supposedly in response to the impact of Covid (bizarre for a time when traffic levels were already plummeting). The thinking was that by closing residential streets, traffic would somehow disappear. It's true that the roads inside the LTNs became quieter but in Lambeth, traffic was funnelled into main roads (known as 'boundary roads'), creating long, slow-moving vehicle queues in less desirable areas, leaving residents of these roads to contend with the displaced traffic and fumes. Yet their concerns were ignored. It's no surprise that Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, who tragically lost her nine-year-old daughter Ella to an asthma attack triggered by air pollution, has come out against LTNs. Councils' justification for LTNs later switched to the promotion of 'active travel' – but in our part of Lambeth the streets are extremely hilly so cycling is not possible for most of the population. For those who are elderly or have disabilities, this is even less of an option. And if anyone thinks the council is sincerely listening to residents' concerns, then note the disastrous introduction of the Streatham Wells LTN in October 2023. Imposed next to an existing LTN, it created catastrophic delays. Public transport was caught up too – in one case a queue of more than 40 London buses was photographed snaking down the High Road. Three-mile journeys took two hours to complete. The story went global – you could probably see the bus queues from space. Yet Lambeth did not relent, and it took the intervention of London's mayor, Sadiq Khan – dismayed that his buses were becoming unrideable – before the scheme was scrapped. Ultimately, the main problem with the LTNs is that they are all stick, no carrot. For all the restrictions and the penalty notices, there has been almost zero improvement in public transport. There are no new bus routes to make travel easier; no extra trains; and in most of south London there is still no underground, a lack of investment that creates millions of unnecessary car journeys across the capital. Many people will, of course, have little sympathy with drivers, especially if they don't own a car. Yet there's a hypocrisy here. Because I can't think of anyone, car owner or not, who doesn't regularly depend on a personal driver: be that the Uber driver, the person who delivers the online shopping, or the local plumber or electrician. The time wasted in queues, the frustration and the extra fuel consumption are all outsourced to the little guy. There should be a way around this, but the first step would be to listen. Lambeth has been exposed for ignoring its residents. Those who oppose LTNs are not rabid petrol-headed rightwingers who want to burn up the planet: they're mostly just ordinary people trying to go about their daily business whose life has been made miserable. They have a right to be heard. And those in power should remember: car ownership is not a crime. Drivers are not evil. Joseph Harker is the Guardian's senior editor, diversity and development
