Chaos caused by Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in Hackney. A call to reverse the failed Low Traffic Neighbourhoods scheme and consult residents properly
All councillors are committed to having more people walk and cycle. However, Hackney Labour Executive has panicked and used the Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse for their war on cars.
The Low Traffic Neighbourhoods imposed by this Labour Executive are a complete disaster, along with the road restrictions imposed by the chauffeur-driven London Mayor Sadiq Khan, which are also choking off the economy of central London. These measures achieve the opposite of the Council’s stated aim of having lower vehicle use with less pollution.
These schemes have created more vehicle use overall as a result of longer journeys, with vehicles gridlocked in traffic jams, cars accelerating into tight spots, both of which create more pollution for longer periods, and break up the cohesiveness of neighbourhoods with angry motorists, cyclists and residents shouting at and threatening one another. In addition to delaying buses and consequently causing TfL to turn buses before their stated destination.
Emergency vehicles cannot get through to save lives. Disabled people and elderly people are particularly disadvantaged, stuck in their homes, unable to have carers come to them, unable to drive at the times they need to shop for food or meet hospital appointments. People who need their cars for work, for example nurses working in the NHS, people with large families that need to transport children or small businesses that need to transport goods for their shops, people that have made the UK their home who tend to travel further out of their own area to get to churches or mosques or faith schools specific to their community, have all been particularly disadvantaged. The scheme is a complete shambles.
The most sinister aspect of this Labour scheme has
been that the young and fit that can ride bikes are favoured over
the old and infirm; the rich are favoured over the poor; the more
mobile over the less able. A sensible Conservative Government
policy has been twisted by Hackney Labour Executive into something
autocratic, favouring the young and fit that can look after
themselves and use bikes, at the expense of everyone else.
Communities are made up of people of different ages and different
abilities. We should not penalise people who need cars and in the
light of the current Covid-19 pandemic where all the sensible
medical advice is that the safest way to travel is in a private car
these schemes are endangering lives.
When Labour councillors are told that hybrids and electric cars are
replacing petrol vehicles, and that pollution will decrease as a
result, they have no answer. Hackney Labour Executive has sat
around making decisions in the Town Hall and Service Centre by
pointing at a map. A related issue is that Hackney’s Labour
Executive and the do-nothing Mayor of London Sadiq Khan have no interest in creating sufficient
parking spaces for electric vehicles in any new housing
developments being built.
These poorly thought-out schemes help make parts of London that are
run by Labour authorities become even more poorly-managed, compared
to areas outside the capital. Travel around London now and you can
see for yourself which areas are run by Labour: poorly-managed
housing, litter, potholes, high debt, high council tax driving
lower opportunities, low social mobility, residents that accept the
failure of their Council because they are told that Labour
councillors are on their side – in reality keeping residents
exactly where they are, to vote Labour.
The current Low Traffic Neighbourhood schemes were rushed through
by Hackney’s Labour Executive under the pretence of a
response to Covid-19, with no proper consultation whatsoever. This
is the now legendary Hackney Labour approach of ‘Make a
decision, then have a consultation.’ Labour councillors have
lost their sense of balance from being in power for too long. They
have learnt nothing from the Zone T parking zone fiasco where the
courts decided that the will of the people must be listened to and
acted upon, and persist in their authoritarian approach of telling
people what to do and how to live their lives, without using common
sense and taking into account the needs of all of our
residents.
Wandsworth
have suspended their Low Traffic
Neighbourhood schemes, citing ‘concerns with emergency access
and traffic flows… compounded by the changes that TfL
[Sadiq Khan] is making to red route
roads… [which] has caused
confusion and long traffic queues’. The Secretary of State
for Transport has written to Lambeth Council asking that it stop
abusing the £250 million fund meant for a Conservative green
transport revolution by installing pointless one-way systems and
barriers that offer ‘no benefit to anyone’.
We should do the same, and have proper consultations to establish
where Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are wanted, probably
nowhere,, or required to solve a
problem.
Council therefore resolves:
1. To end the Low Traffic Neighbourhoods trial immediately, with all road blockages removed;
2. For the Council to go back to the drawing board and consult residents in an unbiased way that does not presume an outcome, to see where low-traffic neighbourhoods or restrictions are actually wanted, or required to solve a problem;
3. To lobby Sadiq Khan to end his road-narrowing and other anti-car schemes, open the bridges, and allow the economy of Central London to return to normal, so businesses there can have a chance of survival whilst he remains Mayor of London, before consulting properly on ways to encourage safe cycling and walking.
Proposed by: Councillor Odze
Seconded by: Councillor Steinberger