The Queen’s Speech in Parliament yesterday (10/05/2022) outlined the Government’s legislative programme. One item of interest for road users was the inclusion of a Public Order Bill to give the police new powers to tackle disruptive demonstrations.
It is likely to mean that “locking on” or gluing oneself to objects will become a specific criminal offence, as will Interfering with key national infrastructure. Police may gain greater powers to stop and search, in a bid to prevent disruptive protests. “Protest Asbos,” or “serious disruption prevention orders” will also become part of the Public Order Bill – imposing conditions on repeat offenders. Penalties for obstructive behaviour will increase also to deter those who repeatedly offend and who frequently take little notice of the current fines imposed.
These proposals brought the predictable complaints from groups such as Extinction Rebellion.
Comment: This legislation is long overdue. Peaceful protest to bring issues to the attention of the public should be protected. But behaviour that disrupts people’s lives, incurs large costs in transport delays and policing needs should not be accepted.
Let us hope that this legislation gets through Parliament quickly and is not diluted by obstructive behaviour in the House of Lords.
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Now that most of the local council election results are in, it’s worth reviewing the results. Particularly in London where many local issues such as the impact of LTNs should have had an impact.
Overall the Conservatives lost hundreds of council seats in the country in what was seen as a complaint about the cost of living, the dislike of Boris Johnson as a result of “partygate” and other national issues. This was a particular problem in London. But there were very mixed results when the detail is examined.
In London Labour won Westminster, Wandsworth and Barnet from the Conservatives but they lost Harrow to the Conservatives. Also Labour lost the elected Mayor role in Tower Hamlets to Lutfur Rahman who had previously been banned from standing after an Election Court found him guilty of illegal and corrupt practices in 2015. LTNs were a significant issue in Tower Hamlets.
Croydon has a new Conservative directly elected Mayor in Jason Perry who won by a narrow majority after a recount. Let us hope that he introduces some reforms after the previous regime bankrupted the council. Postscript: The overall result in terms of other councillors was that Labour lost overall control of the Council with the Conservatives having the largest number of councillors.
In Bromley there was a minor upset in Chislehurst ward where newly formed party Chislehurst Matters won all three seats after running a very effective campaign using social media and focussing on a few local issues. But Conservatives still retained overall control of the council with 36 seats won. Former council leader Colin Smith was re-elected so presumably he will remain in post which is surely to be welcomed as Bromley has generally been a well-managed borough both financially and otherwise in recent years.
In Lewisham the Labour Party retained control – it will remain a one-party state. Mayor Damien Egan actually increased his vote slightly to 58% of all votes cast, although that still equates to only 20.3% of the electorate on a low turnout of 35%. In Lee Green, the ward where there was a lot of controversy over the LTN, Labour retained all three seats but with reduced voting percentages. Comment: there is clearly a lot of political apathy in Lewisham and campaigns by opposing parties seemed to be lacklustre.
In Lambeth, Labour retained control although the LibDems gained a few seats. The Conservatives were nowhere.
In Islington, Labour won 45 of 48 seats to retain control with the Green Party winning the remaining three.
Labour retained control of Greenwich on a 34% turnout.
In Southwark Labour retained control and the opposition to the LTN in Dulwich seemed to have little impact although in that ward the Conservatives and LibDems effectively split the opposition vote.
In Enfield where there was substantial controversy over LTNs the Conservatives reduced Labour’s overall majority on the council from 29 to 13.
In summary the dislike of LTNs had some impact on the results in some boroughs but the national image of the Conservatives did not help with Labour talking mainly about issues such as the economy (which local councillors have no influence over) and ignoring local issues.
The outcome also depended to a large extent on the campaigning effectiveness and expenditure in the local wards, with Chislehurst Matters showing how revolutions could overturn results even when there were no clear manifesto or policy commitments. Personal engagement can make a big difference.
Politics is also a long game and turning around the preferences of people to vote for individual candidates or platforms rather than a party as they should do is not easy.
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The elections for Councillors in London are being held tomorrow (May the 5th). So please get off your backsides and vote!
Polling stations are open from 7.00 am to 10.00 pm so there is really no excuse (unless you have already submitted a postal vote). There is typically a low turnout in local elections so those elected can be unrepresentative of the views of the electorate unless you cast your votes.
These are elections for your local councillors (and Mayors in some boroughs) so vote for those who will best represent you – not necessarily on traditional party lines. This is not a referendum on your views of central Government but on how well your local borough has been managed.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Act is now law as it has received Royal Assent. This Act includes the strengthening of police powers to tackle non-violent protests that have a significant disruptive effect on the public or on access to Parliament. For example demonstrations by such groups as Extinction Rebellion have closed roads, delayed emergency services and incurred millions of pounds in costs to the police. They have also been exceedingly noisy in some cases thus creating disruption and annoyance over a wide area.
The new Act does not stop peaceful demonstrations but it will hamper the activities of extremist organisations who wish to grab attention to their cause by creating disruption. It is surely therefore a positive move to clarify and reinforce the law in this area.
There are many aspects of criminal law tidied up in this Act but one negative aspect is Clause 67 of the Bill which provides a statutory footing for the charging of fees for courses offered as an alternative to prosecution for fixed penalty offences. It gives the police discretion to offer an educational course to a motorist who has committed a low-level driving offence. This is as an alternative to a fixed penalty or prosecution and avoids liability to a criminal conviction, penalty points and higher fine.
As we have pointed out this for the first time makes it legal for the police to solicit a payment to waive prosecution and can be used by the police to raise funds – for example to generate more offences by financing more speed cameras. See https://www.freedomfordrivers.org/speed-awareness-courses for more information.
The new Act also increases the maximum sentence for the offences of causing death by dangerous driving and causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink or drugs to a life sentence. There is also the creation of a new offence of causing serious injury by careless, or inconsiderate, driving. The offence is committed if a person causes serious injury by driving a car or other mechanically propelled vehicle on a road or other public place without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other road users. But the drafting is ambiguous. What is meant by “serious injury” and it could mean that a simple driving error can result in someone being sentenced to a custodial sentence.
These changes are unprincipled in nature and should not have been made.
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Grant Shapps, Transport Minister, has announced that he intends to introduce regulations for pedicabs, otherwise known as rickshaws. At present they are not regulated at all and local councils have no powers to impose regulations on them – for example in the interests of road safety, the safety of passengers or to avoid a public nuisance.
They are a big problem in some parts of London, particularly in the evening.
Mr Shapps said in Parliament that “There isn’t any legislation which accurately enables any type of licensing or regulation. It’s time – it’s high time – I know Parliament has expressed interest through a series backbench bills that for one reason or another…have not proceeded through Parliament. We will do that on Government time in the Transport Bill”.
Comment: some system of licensing is surely required and it would be a good idea to extend that to all pedal cyclists. There was a time when most cyclists used to adhere to the Highway Code but now they tend to cycle through red lights and if they are involved in an accident they just walk away knowing they cannot be traced. All users of vehicles on our roads should be traceable and insured. I would even extend it to the users of e-scooters which are proving to be positively hazardous for pedestrians with numerous reports of personal injury accidents involving them. There is very obviously a great deal of infringement of the current regulations that should stop e-scooters being used on pavements or even on roads unless they are rented as part of a regulated trial. The law is being blatantly ignored.
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The elections for Councillors in London are on May the 5th and I hope you will vote. There is typically a low turnout in local elections so those elected can be unrepresentative of the views of the electorate.
Another problem is that people often vote on national party lines when it is local councillors who make the decisions that affect you directly in your local borough. They also have a big influence on the level of Council Tax that you pay and there is a big variation between different boroughs in London depending on how well the local council manages their finances and the decisions taken by Councillors. It is therefore important that you select the best people to be Councillors.
Another issue to consider is whether Councillors will represent your views and actually respond when you raise an issue with them. A good example of what can go wrong is when Councillors stand for election because they want to save the world from global warming or wish to attack the national Government over its handling of the economy and the price of energy. Councillors have no influence over those matters.
The worst Councillors are those who ignore the views of the public and think they know best. One of the contentious issues in many London boroughs is that over Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs). In several London boroughs where there has been strong opposition to LTNs, it is very clear from survey responses and consultations that most people oppose the LTNs. But Labour Councillors have frequently refused to listen.
Legal challenges to LTNs have been shown to be exceedingly difficult so the only way to get some changes is to vote out the Councillors who supported them!
Who to vote for instead? Only the Conservative Party have made a clear commitment to remove the LTNs in boroughs such as Lewisham and Lambeth. The Liberal Democrats stance is more nuanced and varies from borough to borough.
Labour might win the Council seats simply because the opposition votes are split between the other parties and the few independent candidates. So I would suggest some tactical voting is required, i.e. vote for the candidates that are most likely to gain election and who have policies that you generally agree with.
But try to speak to your local ward councillors (and to the Mayoral candidates in those boroughs who have a directly elected Mayor). Or of course look at their manifestos which you can usually find easily on the web. Particularly look at how interested they are in keeping the road network moving as opposed to spouting dogma about climate emergencies.
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Transport for London (TfL) have published their quarterly performance report. It covers the quarter to 11 December 2021 and gives some useful information on the slow recovery in passenger numbers from the pandemic lows.
In Q3 demand plateaued however and is still only 68% of pre-pandemic levels. But to really get a good picture of how TfL is a total financial basket case you only have to jump to the Appendix. That shows that the “Net Cost of Services” is £2,267 million (i.e. £2.3 billion of costs more than income) for the quarter. This deficit is only made up by £3.4 billion of “Grant income” no doubt mainly from central Government.
Indeed the Chief Financial Officer clearly thinks that he is doing a great job because he says “we are performing better than budget” while staff numbers have actually increased despite passenger numbers falling.
Somebody asked me recently how much London buses were subsidised. I did not know the immediate answer although the last time I looked at this it was an enormous figure. But this report gives you guidance on it. The Appendix reports that for the Operating Segment of “Buses, streets and other operations” there is a deficit of £754 million for the quarter and that probably includes the income from the Congestion and ULEZ charges.
It is clear that TfL are still relying on enormous Government bail-outs to stay afloat and that shows no signs of changing.
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It has been reported that a pedestrian was hit by a bus at or near the war memorial junction in Chislehurst on the 8th April at 10.35 pm. This would appear to be an incident that will be classified as a “minor injury”. It has prompted renewed calls for a pedestrian phase at these lights which has been used as part of a political attack on the Bromley Council Conservative administration who recently rejected a petition on this subject.
It would be wrong to jump to conclusions over the cause of this incident until the full facts are known, but it’s worth pointing out that accidents late at night to pedestrians are often the results of alcohol consumption.
But let’s look at this issue rationally rather than emotionally.
Firstly is this location a particularly accident black spot? One can review that by looking at the Crashmap web site ( https://www.crashmap.co.uk/Search ) where you can easily see all the accidents in the area in the last few years. There are hundreds, and the nearby Chislehurst High Street is clearly an even worse problem area despite the fact that it has several pedestrian crossings which unfortunately many pedestrians ignore and choose to cross elsewhere. The same issue also arises at the War Memorial junction if you review details of the incidents at or nearby.
One of the key principles when deciding whether to spend money on road safety measures is to look at the cost/benefit ratio and where the most benefit can be obtained. There are limited funds available for road safety projects so the money needs to be spent where it can be most effectively deployed.
Looking at the past accident data is much better than relying on often ill-informed opinions on where the most danger lies. The number of minor accidents is a good pointer as large numbers indicate there is high risk of more serious injuries or fatalities (KSIs). KSIs have much higher values attached to them however you care to value them, but large numbers of minor accidents can point to where road safety budgets should be spent.
So people concerned with road safety should look at the statistical data on past accidents which they can easily do and you can obtain details of police reports on accidents (STATS19 reports) by using Freedom of Information Act requests. These provide a lot of information on the causes of accidents.
We don’t need to guess at the causes of accidents or where money should best be spent. You can estimate the benefit of introducing a pedestrian crossing for example, as against the cost; and compare it with the benefit of spending the money elsewhere. You can also calculate the possible disbenefit if traffic is delayed by a new crossing, or diverted onto minor roads.
That is what sensible councils like Bromley do. The unwise ones instead react to political clamour for simplistic solutions and as a result waste a lot of money on ineffectual solutions. You can see that in London boroughs such as Lewisham and Croydon where wide area 20 mph speed limits and speed humps everywhere have been installed at enormous cost and where the result has been a worse road safety improvement record than Bromley. Money has been wasted on ineffective solutions.
Bromley used to suffer from the busybody syndrome 20 years ago before I got involved in road safety issues. People who thought they knew best when they knew little about the science and failed to study the data.
We certainly do not want that scenario back again when money was wasted on ineffective schemes (such as the speed humps on Watts Lane/Manor Park Road).
Ignoring the advice of council officers is another failing of the busybodies. Good ones have both training and experience and should not be ignored unless there are very good reasons.
In summary, road safety decisions should not be made by amateurs, or uneducated grandstanding politicians, who have not looked at the statistical data or the causes of accidents and who are ignoring the wider implications of their decisions.
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Back in November 2020 we submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) to obtain the number of objections received by the Council or Councillors to the Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) schemes in Lewisham. Their response after a long delay was that they did not have that information.
We appealed to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and have just received a final decision. The ICO have concluded that the Council breached regulations 5(2) and 14(1) of the EIR by failing to respond within 20 working days and failing to advise that it was relying on regulation 12(4)(b). But they agreed that it was too burdensome a request.
The FOI Act can be a useful piece of legislation but not when Councils deliberately frustrate or delay answering reasonable questions.
It’s taken so long (eighteen months) to get to this point that the information requested is now somewhat irrelevant so we won’t be pursuing a further appeal. But one item of data obtained as a result was that Louise McBride (Head of Highways and Transport at the Council) alone received 1,040 emails on the subject.
That contradicted a minute of a Council Meeting on the 25th January 2022 where it was stated that Cabinet Member Patrick Codd reported that the Council received approximately 150 emails about the experimental introduction of the LTNs. That was clearly inaccurate and Councillor Codd is arranging for the minute to be corrected.
These events show how Lewisham Council is incompetent in many ways. They failed to record objections in any useful way despite the Lee Green LTN being an “experimental” scheme. I have requested that they at least count the objections to the Permanent LTN properly.
If you have not yet sent in objections to the Lewisham and Lee Green LTN, please use this template email or letter below (simply copy and paste it but modify it as you see fit):
Send to: ParkingDesign@lewisham.gov.uk (or post to Lewisham Transport Policy & Development, 5th Floor Laurence House, 1 Catford Road, London SE6 4RU)
Objection Letter:
Re: Statement of Objections to Traffic Order 4030579
I am writing to object to the proposed Traffic Order 4030579 published on the 25th March 2022 made by the London borough of Lewisham (“Lewisham”) concerning the Lewisham and Lee Green Low Traffic Neighbourhood.
Grounds for Objection
I dispute whether the experimental scheme which is now proposed to be made permanent has actually reduced the volume of traffic (rather than just displaced it). There is no evidence that it has done so during the period of the experimental traffic orders other than within the LTN alone where roads were closed while traffic flows on boundary roads have increased. Neither has it had any impact on overall levels of air pollution as is clear from the evidence in the Monitoring Data Summary published by the council but residents have reported large increases on boundary roads.
One of the objectives was apparently to mitigate the impact of emissions on climate change but there is no way that actions in Lewisham will have any impact on climate change which is driven by major global factors. Any impact from actions in Lewisham will be trivial.
The effect of the scheme has been highly detrimental for the local community as a whole but especially detrimental for people from protected groups defined in the Equality Act 2010. The proposed mitigation measures do not address the intrinsic flaws in the scheme, which have been readily apparent for the entire duration of the scheme.
In short, the scheme displaces traffic on to certain “strategic” and certain other roads without proper consideration of the consequences. Specifically, the impact on those who are car-dependent and those who are dependent upon visitors (e.g. those who receive social care) are disregarded. Moreover, the gridlock and traffic congestion the scheme has created has had indirect effects on many.
1. The Scheme
The scheme restricts traffic from using certain roads at certain times and prevents traffic using routes that have historically been available. This concentrates traffic onto other roads, increases congestion and acts as a barrier, making it much harder to traverse across the borough, and in particular north to south Lewisham and vice versa. The Blackheath, Lee and Hither Green community was previously a completely holistic one but has now been cut in half by the imposition of a physical barrier to all motorised traffic in the heart of the area.
2. The Public Consultation
The public consultation with local residents had numerous flaws and is therefore unlikely to represent the true extent of the local community’s aversion to the scheme.
The Report on the consultation ignores the views expressed in response to the public consultation, the objections received to the Temporary Traffic Orders and the 12,000 signature petition which was submitted to the Council (from Change.org).
Councillor Patrick Codd is reported as saying: “We believe the LTN is meeting its aims…..” while Mayor Damien Egan said “The world is facing a climate emergency and we urgently need to do more to improve air quality in London” but he seems to have ignored the evidence in the report that air quality is already massively improved and will continue to be so (NO2 concentrations at roadsides have fallen by 42% since 2014).
The LTN was introduced urgently and without prior consultation as a measure to help social distancing during the pandemic. The Council’s report says “The primary aim was to encourage people to walk and cycle more, and to do so safely…..” (see para. 5.2). But did it? The evidence is not clear particularly as travel patterns changed as a result of the pandemic (see the TfL report above for evidence of how travel was reduced or changed in London). Closure of schools and businesses with more working from home were the main factors.
The Council received 7,065 responses to the public consultation on the LTN. Some 56% of respondents felt negatively about the revised LTN, as opposed to 44% who felt positively or neutral. That’s a clear majority against the current road closures which Councillors have ignored in an anti-democratic fashion. It is unfortunately the case that councillors and council officers once they have taken a dogmatic position, in this case that “deterring the use of vehicles is good for the planet”, they rarely want to change their minds despite the contrary evidence of the negative side effects.
In this case the road closures have increased journey times for many people, increased air pollution on boundary roads and obstructed emergency service vehicles. The conversion to ANPR enforcement will avoid the latter problem but has already resulted in many accidental fines so we do not consider that a sensible solution and it is clearly being motivated by the financial benefit obtained. That is unfair and unreasonable.
The Report comments on the Equalities Impact Assessment but simply ignores the negative consequences of the impact on disabled people who rely on motor vehicles. The Report also ignores the obligations of the Council under the Traffic Management Act 2004.
Although the latest LTN is an improvement on the original version it will still cause many problems. For example the closure of Upwood Road, Manor Lane, Manor Lane Terrace and Manor Park might deter through traffic but will also cause enormous inconvenience to local residents or their visitors who will have to take very circuitous routes. People badly affected by the closures are being ignored.
3. The impact of the scheme on main roads
There can be no doubt that the scheme has displaced substantial traffic onto roads which simply cannot bear the volume of traffic forced on them. This has had a severe impact on local residents and particularly the groups identified above.
4. The day-to-day impact of the scheme
The day-to day impacts to local residents have been overwhelming and are not limited to those outlined below;
5. Impact on certain groups
The Public Consultation confirms that the “overwhelming majority” of people from protected groups oppose the scheme. We strongly believe, and the evidence shows, that, despite this clear opposition, the needs of particular groups have not been adequately thought about and the scheme actually exacerbates challenges for these groups rather than removes them.
Car use is often essential for older and disabled people; and for those who are dependent upon their car it needs to be available at all times to ensure that they can visit urgent health appointments and live independently.
Many have attempted to eliminate their private car use, but the only potentially affordable alternative is taxis or minicabs (PHVs). However, as a result of the scheme, some residents are reporting that taxis and minicabs are struggling or refusing to access streets within the scheme.
The other alternative to private car use, buses, are slower and unreliable plus difficult to use for people with mobility problems meaning that older people do not feel that this is a viable alternative.
For many older people, cycling and walking extended distances are simply not viable.
Access to visitors who travel by car, such as community nurses, social care staff, pharmacists and GPs, is equally essential. Similarly, these health and social care professionals need to be available at all times to provide care and deliver prescriptions.
Cumulatively, older people describe the impact as severe; as well as the obvious health impacts caused by struggling to access services, they spoke of being kettled-in or cut-off from their friends and family.
Accessing school for disabled children has become exceptionally difficult with journeys that should take a maximum of 15 minutes now taking 45 minutes.
The consideration of those who are car-dependent has been wholly unsatisfactory.
Given that Lewisham is required to think about the impact of these schemes on protected groups and remove obstacles that prevent protected groups participating in society, Lewisham has failed to meet its duty since it has failed to make any effective mitigation for those who are largely or wholly car-dependent and whose mobility has been drastically reduced or removed by this scheme. Cumulatively, the scheme exacerbates obstacles for protected groups rather than removing them. These obvious disadvantages, explained in exacting detail in the Public Consultation, and Lewisham’s own Equality Impact Assessment, are completely discounted.
6. Add a statement about how you personally have been inconvenienced by this scheme:
7. Conclusion
For the reasons set out above, I object to Traffic Orders 4030579 in the strongest possible terms and ask that you reverse your decision to make the Lewisham and Lee Green Low Traffic Neighbourhood permanent given the impact on local residents, local businesses and, in particular, those in protected groups. I urge Lewisham to recognise that this experiment has thus far failed and to show its courage by not ploughing on with an obviously divisive, detrimental and unsuccessful scheme that fails to fulfil its aims.
Yours faithfully
(Name)
(Address)
<END>
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The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, intends to expand the ULEZ scheme to the whole of London next year. At least he will unless there is strong opposition to it.
An expanded ULEZ will mean drivers in outer London will need to pay £12.50 per day every day of the year if they drive an older vehicle. But there is simply no justification on environmental grounds. It will make very little difference to air pollution.
The Mayor is just scaremongering in the interest of raising taxes to help pay for his financial mismanagement of TfL.
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