There was an interesting article in the Sunday Telegraph on 10/10/2021 over a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO). This was a complaint on how two Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) had been installed in Hounslow without proper consideration of the impact on older residents. The complainant who is aged in his 70s said he relied on his car to take shopping home and road closures obstructed the route.
The LGO upheld the complaint to the extent that the local Council had failed to produce evidence to show they considered the potential impact of the proposals and criticised some aspects of the decisions by the Council. But it appears that the only result might be an apology from the Council to the complainant although one of the road closures complained of was subsequently removed.
Comment: This is a typical example of the outcome of any complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman. I advise people not to waste their time on such complaints but to threaten legal action. From past experience the LGO seems to favour councils and rarely upholds complaints in full or gets action taken. The LGO is a very ineffective organisation probably because many of its staff are former local government officers.
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There is now a new petition on Change,org against the removal of this valuable facility. Although there may be a demand for more housing, this is surely more about TfL crystalising the value of the land and increasing their profits while ignoring the needs of their customers.
The new petition emphasises that car parks are essential resources for women to get back safely at night to their home in the quiet suburbs of London. Likewise, the station car parks are essential for older people and people with disabilities (not just blue badge holders, but also the many hundreds of thousands of people that have disabilities, but do not hold a blue badge) to be able to access London’s transport network.
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This morning Insulate Britain protestors blocked the Blackwall Tunnel, Hangar Lane, Arnos Grove and Wandsworth Bridge, causing chaos during Monday’s rush hour. It resulted in angry scenes with motorists – see https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/insulate-britain-london-a12-chaos/
This is yet another selfish action by such demonstrators. Transport Minister Grant Shapps said this over the weekend: “Recent weeks have demonstrated that the police need stronger powers to tackle those who illegally block motorways. Conservatives will introduce new laws to lock perpetrators up for 6 months, and face unlimited fines. We will not stand by while motorists are held hostage”.
The sooner such laws are introduced, the better, But clearly they need to cover all roads, not just motorways.
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The Government has published the latest annual road casualty data for Great Britain. This does include of course periods (April to June and November in 2020) when the country was in lockdown from the coronavirus pandemic and when travel of all kinds was reduced. So the figures may not be typical – they do include a separate analysis of the impact of lockdown.
There were 1,460 reported road deaths and 23,529 KSI (Killed and Seriously Injured) which are substantial reductions on prior years – see chart above of fatal trends. Fatalities reduced by 17% over the prior year and KSIs by 22% when road traffic reduced by 21%, i.e. there was no significant difference assuming accidents directly relate to traffic volumes although anecdotally increases in traffic speed were reported during lockdowns.
Total casualties, including slight ones, were down by 25% although that might be due to less reporting and changes to the way data was collected by the police using Stats19 forms. Although adjustments were made to allow for the latter, people may have been less willing to visit police stations to report slight injuries during the pandemic.
Cycling casualties rise
One anomaly in the data is that there was a substantial increase in the number of cyclist deaths – up by 41% to 141 from 2019. Presumably this might be because of encouragement to cycle during the pandemic or more inexperienced cyclists on the roads. Other data suggests there was some increase in cycling in 2020 particularly during the summer months although whether that continued into 2021 is not clear.
Politicians and civil servants should be aware that encouraging cycling does lead to more deaths and injuries to cyclists, i.e. it’s not a risk free move. Cycling is still very much a minority interest for most journeys but as more people worked from home and had more leisure time for cycling this may account for the change in numbers.
Bus casualties fall
Another significant change during 2020 was the reduction in bus casualties by 51%. Many such accidents are caused by the elderly or disabled falling over in buses and as they were probably being wary of using public transport during the pandemic that may account for this change. For similar reasons there were greater reductions in casualties in those aged up to 16 and over 60 as they travelled less.
In summary, there was a welcome reduction in overall casualties last year but that was almost certainly down simply to reductions in travel on our roads.
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The Transport Secretary has issued an announcement encouraging drivers to go electric. It includes the release of a new app that helps UK drivers see which electric vehicles would best suit their lifestyle. In addition there will be additional support to small businesses and renters to install EV charging points. See Reference 1 below for more details.
The free app is named EV8 Switch and I downloaded and tried it out. It is not exactly clear how to install it and after ten days usage and driving several hundred miles in total there was no apparent data to analyse even though it was clearly recording data. But it was obvious that it was consuming a lot of cpu cycles and running down the phone battery so I deleted it. If anyone else tries it with success, please let me know whether you found it useful.
Coincidentally I happened to meet up with a couple of people who I used to work with but had not met for 20 years. One had bought an electric bike plus a Jaguar XKR recently. The other had bought a Tesla Model S five years ago. He was exceedingly happy with it.
As a company car user he saves on tax and charging is very low cost – in fact although he can charge at home he does not do so because he can charge it for free at a Tesla Supercharger facility (free charging seems to be something only on offer for limited periods of time). He has never run out of power while driving it.
No doubt some readers will say that they cannot afford a Tesla – current list price of a Long Range Model S is £73,990 and a Model 3 is from £42,500. But prices have been falling and there are of course cheaper electric cars on the market (but new ones might be on long lead times). You do save on running costs even if the capital cost is high.
It is very clear that electric cars are perfectly practical for most car users and with shortages of petrol/diesel at filling stations because of the recent panic over fuel deliveries, they can have distinct advantages!
I will certainly be considering an electric vehicle when my current diesel car is due for replacement. I don’t switch vehicles very often because depreciation is the major cost of any car so it is best to only replace them when they become unreliable or expensive to maintain.
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This morning (20/09/2021) the M25 was again disrupted by eco fanatic protestors. The Home Secretary Priti Patel has ordered the police to get tougher but there is not much sign of that happening except that they do seem to be moving quickly to remove the demonstrators.
But they could do a lot more. The Daily Mail covered some of the possibilities in an article which you can read in the link below.
It suggests that “senior officers from Hertfordshire, Surrey, Kent, Essex and the Met are considering charging the activists with more serious crimes to ensure they are deterred from further protests. Conspiracy to cause a public nuisance, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, is thought to be one of the punishments considered”.
So far although the protestors have been removed, they have not been remanded in custody or even charged, i.e. they have not appeared in court. So they can effectively carry on regardless.
Their activity is a danger to life as was covered in another part of the Mail article where they reported on a person probably having a stroke being held in the jams for several hours. A stroke or similar medical incident needs medical attention in minutes not hours if long-term effects or death are to be avoided.
London Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has led the weak response to demonstrators in London and now it has spread wider. She should never have been appointed to the post after her involvement in the death of Jean Charles de Menezes – an innocent person shot by the police in 2005. Cressida Dick has recently been reappointed to her post thus extending her job for another two years.
The Home Secretary needs to consider some emergency legislation to stop these demonstrations, particularly the closures of the major road network such as all motorways. That has now become essential.
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An article in the Financial Times this week (17/9/2021) spelled out how the London Transport Commissioner is looking to solve the financial problems of Transport for London (TfL). Andy Byford who heads TfL called on the Government to provide £17 Billion of funding over the next decade.
TfL has certainly been badly affected by the pandemic with a big reduction in income as people have avoided travelling on the Underground and on buses. They have already had several temporary bail-outs to keep operations running although the Government imposed a number of conditions on their financial support. Usage of buses and the tube is increasing but it may be a long time, if never, before it returns to the same levels as seen before the pandemic as working from home (WFH) or hybrid office use has become adopted.
Mr Byford hopes to achieve financial stability by the financial quarter ending in March 2022. But that is a hope rather than a certainty. That will not include funding for replacing diesel buses by electric ones, the purchase of trains for underground lines nor any major new projects. It is also dependent on Crossrail opening on the long-delayed schedule and providing extra income. Mr Byford suggests that without extra “investment” (i.e. spending money he does not have), London’s transport network could enter a doomsday scenario of managed decline.
In other words, instead of using profits from existing operations to maintain and improve the network, he wants the Government to donate large sums of money out of our taxes to help him implement grandiose plans. This is surely no way to run a business – and make no mistake TfL is a business not just a public service.
Mr Byford seems to want to follow the typical socialist mantra of spend, spend, spend to solve his financial problems. Surely there is a better way.
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Yesterday (13/9/2021) the M25 was blocked in several places by protestors claiming to be from a group called “Insulate Britain”. This is a new group wanting to persuade the Government to pay to insulate all Britain’s homes but they look very much like a front for Extinction Rebellion (XR) . For example they are not doing it to save residents money by cutting heating bills. Their web site says it is “part of a just transition to full decarbonisation of all parts of society and the economy”. In other words it’s an organisation that is focussed on CO2 emissions and alleged global warming. They presumably think it is more palatable to the general public, particularly those who live in social housing, to promote this rather than the normal XR agenda.
This demonstration was well organised in advance with media representatives in attendance. It closed several sections of the M25 for several hours before the police managed to remove them. Over 90 arrests were made but will they be charged and significant penalties imposed? It seems unlikely.
The M25 takes as many as 200,000 vehicles per day and Monday morning is one of the busiest times. So this hold up could have delayed 100,000 people as well as having a wider impact on the road network as drivers diverted. At a cost of £10 per hour that could mean a cost of over £1 million imposed on innocent people. Plus of course the cost of the police time involved in the events. Surely the culprits should be made to pay that and more? See Reference 2 below for Daily Mail coverage of the demonstrations.
Some people stuck in the traffic queues attempted to remove the protestors but were stopped by the police from interfering. Yet again the police are shown to be toothless in preventing obstruction of the highway which is against the law. See Reference 1 below for previous comments on why the police do nothing.
There is currently a Bill passing through Parliament (see Reference 3) which will make it easier for police to take action to prevent similar demonstration. It is surely long overdue.
But will it solve the problem? Not if the penalties for causing such disruption are so trivial. As financial penalties are no deterrent to the type of people involved in these events, a lengthy spell in prison (and not suspended sentences) are surely the only answer.
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One of the big topical issues in London is air quality, particularly as there is an allegation that the Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) that have been introduced have made air pollution worse.
One of the justifications for introducing LTNs including road closures in boroughs such as Lewisham was the need to improve air quality. However it is alleged that the diversion of traffic onto main roads has actually made matters worse in some locations.
Lewisham has now published a Draft Air Quality Action Plan which is now open to public consultation (see link below). It gives some more data on the air pollution issue and what the council plans to do on this subject in 2022-2027. It’s well worth reading and commenting on by Lewisham residents and is probably typical of many other London boroughs.
Some comments before you respond to the consultation: This report and the associated consultation contain a mass of data and a few recommendations, but the information is hardly presented in a clear way. It is hardly the kind of document that an uninformed general member of the public will find digestible. I will try to pick out some of the salient points.
Firstly is there an air quality problem in Lewisham that is affecting the health of the general population? That’s opposed to those such as Ella Kissi-Debrah who was the subject of a recent inquest (i.e. the particularly vulnerable or suffering from other medical conditions), or children.
The report says: “An assessment of air quality in Lewisham has shown a decreasing trend in the levels of two pollutants, nitrogen dioxide (NO²)) and particulate matter (PM) in recent years. However more needs to be done to meet the guidelines set out by the World Health Organisation”. The report repeatedly refers to WHO guidelines which are not the legal limits set by EU and UK regulations (see link below). The WHO limits are much lower and are not necessarily those justifiable by scientific data on health impacts.
The report emphasises the health effects of exposure to nitrous oxides (NO2) despite the fact that there is no clear consensus on the long-term impacts of NO2 – see the latest COMEAP report from the Government Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollution (see link below). However it does say that “On average, annual mean NO2 concentrations at both roadside and urban background monitoring locations have decreased between 2014 and 2020 by an average of 42% and 37% respectively”. You can see the trend in NO2 emissions in Lewisham in the chart above.
Particulates (PM2.5 and PM10, particularly the former) are probably more of concern although here again Lewisham is within UK legal limits where the air quality is measured. Similarly here also the trend has been falling. It is difficult to see from the report that air quality is a substantial problem in Lewisham so far as health impacts are concerned. The data is not there to show that.
The air quality has clearly been improving in the last few years, but this is not obviously down to any actions by the local council but from changes to the vehicle fleet, central government regulations, improved heating systems, etc.
However the Council has clearly taken up the public clamour by attempts to reduce car use, making walking and cycling the preferred choice of travel, reducing children’s exposure by such measures as School Streets, and of course the LTNs.
Page 3 of the council’s report attempts to provide further justification by mixing up air quality and the council’s response to the alleged “climate emergency” as if improving NO2 or PM will have any impact on climate, when the latter is allegedly more related to CO2 emissions. There is no such link.
The council is adopting targets to reduce PM2.5 despite the fact that much of those pollutants come from outside the borough – indeed outside of London, even outside of the UK altogether, over which the council has no control.
The council’s proposals for action include an expansion in monitoring activities (more diffusion tubes to monitor NO2 and new PM2.5 monitors) and raising public awareness by more social media activity. They also propose:
Reducing pollution in and around schools and extending school audits to other schools in polluted areas.
Enforcing the Non-Road Mobile Machinery (NRMM) Low Emission Zone.
Promoting and enforcing Smoke Control Zones.
Promoting and delivering energy efficiency retrofitting projects in workplaces and homes.
Regular Car Free days/temporary road closures in high footfall areas.
Reducing emissions from Council fleets.
Some of these measures may be beneficial but how much so is unclear.
In summary this report from Lewisham Council is a typical one. Policies are proposed with no clear cost/benefit justification and no obvious measures of success. Just as with the Lee Green LTN, there is no clear outcome that will indicate whether the scheme is a success and justify the expenditure on implementation.
Neither will it satisfy Lewisham residents who are being affected by worse air pollution because there are no specific actions proposed to tackle their complaints (for example air pollution near the South Circular).
Even the proposed actions are unspecific and the on-line consultation form asks wishy-washy questions rather than specific ones. Do Lewisham residents, or their visitors, actually support “car-free” days for example?
But residents should certainly respond to the consultation.
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Solicitors Leigh Day are recruiting claimants for potential legal claims over the use of “cheat “devices in diesel cars to fool testing of emissions. From 2014, software which manipulated air pollution tests was discovered in vehicles from some car makers. It particularly affected German makes such as VW and Mercedes but it is likely that other manufacturers were also involved. The software recognized when the standardized emissions test was being done, and adjusted the engine to emit less during the test. The cars emitted much higher levels of pollution under real-world driving conditions.
Leigh Day, one of the larger UK legal firms, are now working on claims for BMW, Citroen, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Ford, Mercedes-Benz, MINI, Peugeot, Vauxhall, Volvo, Nissan/Renault, Porsche, Audi, Seat, Skoda and Volkswagen vehicle owners. They believe that there may have been ‘defeat devices’ used in the vehicles which were unlawful under UK law and consequently, there are potentially hundreds of thousands of unlawfully polluting vehicles on the roads in the UK. They believe that owners of the affected vehicles should be compensated because they were mis-sold these vehicles, which were advertised as being more environmentally friendly with lower NOx emissions. Increased levels of NOx emissions are harmful to the environment and to the health of children and adults.
Leigh Day would represent claimants on a ‘No Win-No Fee’ basis under a Damages-Based Agreement (DBA). The costs of pursuing such a claim would be covered by litigation funding agreements with third parties and with insurance to cover the risks of adverse costs if the case was lost. Costs might consume up to 36% of any successful claim.
You do of course need to make your own decision about whether to join the claims which would be pursued as Group Litigation cases as we cannot provide legal advice, but a quick review of what they say suggests it is worthy of further consideration.
However you need to read the proposed contract of 30 pages carefully before you sign it and there are a number of limitations on vehicles covered. As with all litigation, the outcome is likely to be uncertain and any successful claim is likely to take several years to conclude.
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