Rockets

Ok here goes..... Since day 1 of the LTNs the emergency services have been very clear - blocked roads increase response times. Southwark councillors were more than aware of this from the beginning of the LTN debacle during Covid because, when the council were going LTN mad and were trying to carpet bomb them everywhere they had suggested one for Peckham Rye and had initiated a consultation. As usual they took glowing endorsements of their proposal to close parts of Peckham Rye from the cycle lobby but got negative feedback from TFL and the emergency services due to the disruption their physical closure barriers were going to have - the emergency services made their preference clear that they do not like physical barriers. Needless to say Southwark ignored that emergency service input and pushed ahead with their plans only to cancel them when the realised LTNs were turning residents against them. Now the video below (from March 2021) is interesting from a couple of perspectives: 1) Clearly LAS were making their feelings on permanent closures very clear to Southwark - please scroll to 1 hour 4 minutes to hear from them - 51 of the 170 delays caused by LTNs in London were in Southwark - yet it took over a year for emergency vehicles to be given access and, if I remember correctly FOIs showed that LAS had been writing to Dale Foden and the council alerting them to the delays. So why the delay and why is there a constant narrative from local lobby groups that the junction has to be closed to ALL traffic (including emergency vehicles) and why the new designs return to a partial full closure of the junction - most rational and pragmatic people can surely see that the compromise installed in 2022 to allow emergency vehicle access was the most sensible approach. The council put the desires of local lobby groups ahead of the emergency services...which is madness...and then that leads us to point 2).... 2) Notice the presence of Jeremy Leach on the call - not a councillor but the Co-Optee of the council's environmental scrutiny committee and he is constantly pushing the councillors to do more to deal with traffic issues and reduce traffic. I suspect he is deemed one of the "expert" voices the council was turning to for guidance at this period. But, much like the activist researchers the council turned to Jeremy is very much an "activist expert" and was chair of the London Living Streets, co-founder of Action Vision Zero and part of Southwark Cyclists - so you can see why if the council was taking guidance and direction from him how they may have not been making decisions in the public interest. Clearly someone has convinced the council that the junction needs to be closed to all vehicles as there cannot be any other explanation for why they held out for so long (that created increased response times) - remember they are wasting another £1.5m to close one arm of the roads permanently again - honestly if someone wants to enlighten me to a part of this story I am missing then feel free but to me it looks like something very odd has been going on at the DV junction and the council is ignoring the majority and listening to the few... https://lrscconference.org.uk/index.php/agenda-speakers/jeremy-leach-co-founder-action-vision-zero/ No it was 64% of the total who lived in the consultation area - 57% when the council looked at all the respondents to the consultation. 3,162 (64%) wanted it returned to its original state 823 (17%) wanted it retained as was 422 (8%) wanted a different measure installed 564 (11%) wanted the measure, but modify/ enhance it with other features So back then the 11% got their wish! In every consultation in relation to the DV junction there has been overwhelming rejection of the council's plans by local residents - yet they carry-on wasting our money on it regardless - just who are they trying to placate?

We are actually referred to as "Supporters"...2,100 of us across Dulwich...read and weep! 😉 https://www.onedulwich.uk/supporters Got it, the one where 64% of respondents in the consultation area said they wanted the measures "returned to their original state". Is that the one you claim had a yes/no response question? Well I suggest you read up on it as it is an important part of the story of utter mismangement by the councils and this is why so many of us can't work out who is pulling the council's strings on this one because surely you can agree that if the emergency services were knocking on your door for months and months telling you the blocks in the roads were delayihg response times and putting lives at risk you'd do something about it? Pretty negligent not to do so don't you think - if I was a councillor it would not sit well with me? Careful it could be a Mrs, Miss or Mx One..... Of course you don't that's because you have strong opinions but hate being asked for detail to.back-up those opinions (especially when it doesn't serve their narrative) and exposes the flaws in your arguments! 😉 As so many of the pro-LTN lobby find to their cost the devil is always in the detail.....

No I don't disagree. I wasn't condoning drivers getting confused and the debate on whether refresher tests should be taken is a long one and is something probably for a Malumbu- thread! I take it you never entered your details as someone agreeing with their sentiment but lots of Dulwich residents did and as part of that you get their email updates. So no, I have nothing to do with tje group beyond one of those two thousand dots on their website as a "member" is me! Now, are you going to answer my questions or pretend you never saw them....p.s. we have seen this tactic before - happy to throw questions but not happy to answer some yourself...

Yes, but as I have said before I have nothing to do with their organisation (other than subscribing to their updates which I then post on here). Sorry to disappoint you. I await your answers....

No idea. Ask One Dulwich No. There are two seperate issues. I believe some cover their plates deliberately (delivery drivers etc) and a number are confused by signage. I spend a lot of time in that area and have only ever seen one car drive through and it was an elderly couple who were incredibly confused (and subsequently very apologetic to an angry cyclist who was calling them all the names under the sun). Some questions for you to answer now: 1) Which consultation are you referring to? 2) Did you agree with the council's insistence on keeping the junction closed to emergency vehicles despite the emergency services telling them it was delaying response times? 3) At a time of funding crisis do you think £1.5m is a good spend to redesign a junction and those redesigns: - potentially increase emergency vehicle response times - do nothing to stop persistent number plate covering offenders - do nothing to slow cyclists at a pedestrian area

Which original consultation? Err be careful with the expert opinion and data part.....if you think the cycle lobby and Aldred et al is the sole source of sound opinion on such issues! 😉 And this is where they fell foul of the law and had to re-run the consultation. It actually casts huge doubt on a lot of previous consultations (including the latest DV one) as they do not pass the legal watermark because they do not provide a yes/no response. The council are terrified of a judicial review because, I suspect under legal advice, they know they cheated the system in many previous consultations. Do you remember when the council claimed they had a mandate for the CPZs because of some seriously dodgy research conducted with a large tranche of students in the north of the borough in 2018.....

To which one do you refer - the original OHS consultation from 2017? BTW here are the guidelines on consultations: Consultation is technically any activity that gives local people a voice and an opportunity to influence important decisions. It involves listening to and learning from local people before decisions are made or priorities are set. It seems the voice only apllies if constituents agree with the council's proposals...if they disagree thays when they claim "this was not a referendum". ...you forgot to mention that the polling was conducted amongst those who live WITHIN an LTN...an important, perhaps deliberate, ommission on your part..

Prior to the LTNs do you have many examples where the results of consultations were not acted upon? Seems to me the council is picking and choosing when they action the feedback from their constituents....... Have you looked at the results from that, if not, tale some time to have a look, its quite enlightening..it seems the majority do not think the changes will have the desired effect....but you know it's not a refendum so the council has chosen to ignore the feedback of constituents. They must be assuming full responsibility for ignoring residents feedback- clearly they think they know what's best for us. If it all goes wrong let's see if they take responsibility! Earl, here's a question for you (and i know you wont answer it but lets see)...why do you think the council has never asked a yes/no question to local residents about anything to do with the LTNs - wether they exist or whether we think the changes they have suggested (using our money) are needed/worthwhile? Or a consultation with a yes/no answer but we all know why. I still laugh that the council had to re-run the CPZ consultation with a yes/no answer and finally had to listen to their constituents...they took a hell of a spanking! They have been cheating the system for years and getting away with it. So does that not apply during consultations then? (P.S before you answer take a look at the definition of a consultation as provided by the Local Government Association).

But you don't think the same protection should be afforded to those on the anti-LTN side...? Given the witch hunt some are be conducting to unearth which local residents are involved (see numerous examples on this forum), given the vandalism of the anti-LTN signs and interference with cars, labelling of anyone who opposes as some sort of petrol-head facist and given even Anna Goodman's tearing down of an anti-LTN poster you still think you only want anonimyity for those on one side of the argument? Does that not seem slightly hypocritical...it's why your first post on this issue entertained so many of us - it seemed ever so one-sided and summed up the challenges anyone who opposes the measures has to fight?

The most recent one did, despite the council making it very difficult for anyone to object (which interestingly they were forced to change for the CPZ consultation and look how that went for them). I will dig out the responses for you when I have more time so you can enlighten yourself. Ha ha...the language used by councils when they see the results of a consultation and need an out to ignore the views of locals...;-) Did you not notice how this only became a thing once the consultation had been run....one wonders why!? Earl you can bluster all you like but you cannot ignore the fact the council closed the junction to emergency services and put lives at risk and resisted all calls (from the emergency services) to open it for them. Surely you can't defend that or are you willingly turning a blind eye to that too? Ha ha, which kind of begs the question then why so many of you get so vexed by One Dulwich? Surely you could compartmentalise their work if the above was true? I suspect it has a lot to do with the accountability that they are forcing and the fact some don't like it.

Because the council responsible for it is far-left.... And you haven't answered whether it is worth diverting emergency vehicles because a few cars drive through the LTN and why some lobby groups have been so desperate to close it to emergency vehicles. Emergency services hate non-permeable junctions as they lengthen response times....f you remember it's why the council had to redesign the DV junction because emergency services kept telling them they needed to be able to drive through it...but the council resisted and resisted until they finally relented because the emergency services said their LTN had increased response times....sorry if the truth gets in the way of a good story but those are facts. The council was putting lives at risk because they refused to open the junction to emergency services. Why? What could have been the motivation for that? So, in fact, it was the emergency services who forced the council (kicking and screaming) to remove the permanent barriers and allow emergency services access. So the council finally opened the junction to emergency services and is now coming back to re-close part of the junction. Why? Perhaps you should be asking who is lobbying the council to close the junction or parts of it or why the council is happy to waste so much of our money on it - who are they representing as even their own consultation demonstrated they did not have support from the local community for the measures? The results showed the majority of local residents were against the measure...but they are going ahead with them anyway. In time, I am sure the truth will come to light and those rewponsbile will be held accountable but you have to admit there is something very unusual going on with that junction - its the very definition of a (very expensive) white elephant.

But you have to assess whether these persistent drivers are creating more safety issues than diverting emergency vehicles on a longer route and clearly they are not. The fact members of the pro-closure lobby have built their argument on this actually shows how desperate, some would say selfish, they are to have the junction closed and just the way they want it. And unfortunately they seem to have the council over a barrel on something as the council weakly concedes to their position without hesitation. Was this not borne from an FOI that said one of the emergency services confirmed that they had not been consulted on the new DV design that Cllr Leeming then said was actually a mistake by the emergency services - and then it's a case of whether you believe Cllr Leeming or not....and his track record is hardly unblemished when it comes to all things LTNs? Exactly! When the "small vocal minority" was given a mouthpiece that proved it was anything other than small then some have repeatedly tried to discredit the mouthpiece. The far-left has never been very good at accountability and One Dulwich is forcing our local councillors and council to be accountable to constituents and it wouldn't surprise me if the council are behind a lot of the depositioning activities as One Dulwich is stopping them from getting CPZs rolled out and must be seen as a huge thorn in the side of the idealogical plan they have. Southwark Labour has a long track record of trying to stifle constituents with a view that differs from theirs (see Cllr Leo Pollack for one example) or depositioning anyone trying to represent them (see Cllr Williams during the infamous Cllr Rose "mansplaining" episode. But you know, some think it's One Dulwich that are the greatest threat to local democracy and should not be trusted! 😉

Ha ha, some people really don't like an opinion that differs to theirs do they! Bravo One Dulwich - you're magnificently rattling the cages of people who don't want to hear a differing opinion and the fact they get so irate about it is the icing on the cake! Some spend so much emotional energy trying to convince themselves One Dulwich is some shadowy, agitator state-funded lobby group when all they are is a group of local residents giving a voice to the majority of residents impacted by the measures.

Malumbu, by that measure are police efforts to cut down on anti-social driving by issuing tickets and fines a token effort as well? Surely punitive measures for cyclists breaking the rules will encourage them not to break the rules again? A bit like when you got stopped and taken into the cab of an HGV. The police are currently using that tactic to show those who break the rules cycling that it might lead them to being hit by a lorry due to the driver's having limited vision - the cycling equivalent of a speed awareness course for drivers. When they stopped you was it because you had broken a rule or was it just more of an education programme and they asked you to take a look and did it change your cycling behaviour in any way? As I said previously there are those who break the rules on cycling out of ignorance (and those out of arrogance) and I am sure they are using HGVs to educate those in the ignorance category and then hitting those in the arrogance category with the PCNs.

They are certainly persistent - they try to sell us it every time we walk up and down Lordship Lane - no matter if you told them no thank you three minutes earlier! Anyone else feel that sense of relief when you walk and see they have someone they are talking (invariably looking like they are trying to get away) allowing you to walk past without becoming their next sale target?

DulvilleRes - that's the best post...honestly - never have I seen more perfect example of the over-riding problem here...was it posted as a joke? The fact that some, who clearly come from the pro-LTN side of the argument, are so vexed by what One Dulwich puts out there shows what a great job One Dulwich are doing to ensure both sides of the argument are heard and that is the very essence of democracy at play - the fact some are trying to demonise them for doing so speaks volumes. Do elements of the Dulwich Society fear that One Dulwich are going to mount a coup and turn Dulwich Village into a multi-storey car park.....or maybe it's more a case that One Dulwich are, in fact (and this will probably vex a few people), a community action group run by local Dulwich residents who are interested in a range of wider issues covered by the Dulwich Society?

The whole defence of "this isn't an issue because drivers cause more harm" is just blinkered nonsense. There is clearly a problem which is why the police are doing what they are in the City and issuing PCNs for offenders - 1,000 is a hell of a number (and another 9,000 being spoken to) if these are being issued by officers standing at junctions - I would love to know how they are doing it do they watch them jump red lights and wave them down further down the road? I did see a cyclist once ride up from Monument onto the pavement and across the lights in front of a police motorcyclist who just shook his head as the bike rode in front of him with the pedestrians crossing and then, once the lights went green, zoomed off to pull the cyclist over. I mean that is just daft by the cyclist! Hopefully the message will start getting across that everyone is supposed to obey the rules of the road.

Cyclists certainly do have a bit of a perception problem at the moment and when I cycle I see a lot of examples of arrogance and ignorance that gives all cyclists a bad name - it does seem that many cyclists have caught the entitlement bug many drivers seem to have.

But Spartacus didn't mention the significant amounts of land being used for car storage - that was most definitely you. And I am afraid when you apply your same measure to other transport uses (like cycleways and cycle lanes - Malumbu is your stat on the 360 kms of cycle network cycleways or cycle lanes?) then it most definitely is relevant for the debate. Should we assume then that if all this ULEZ money and government bailout money is being poured into TFL then the system is, financially at least, broken or is it a case that the money is being mis-spent (like the DV junction project)?

Is Sadiq worried about voter apathy/protest votes? Just got another flyer through the door, it seems to be one every couple of weeks, suggesting the Tories are closer than any opinion poll suggests and that people should not vote for the Lib Dems or Greens.

If it was then that would have required me to have deviated the discussion onto that particular subject but I didn't did I - you did - you started the "land given over to cars" cost narrative within the discussion did you not? Clearly whomever dreamt up the "land given over cars" narrative (remember that wonderful graphic people were posting on the forum?!), was so blinkered that they didn't bother to think it through properly....but hey ho...not the first time we have seen this happen! Clearly ULEZ money is not going back into public transport or maintaining roads and I think that was the point that was being raised - so it does beg the question where the money is being spent. Perhaps it goes to fund projects like the Dulwich Village £1.5m re-design of the re-design of the re-design.....

In London huge swathes of public land have been dedicated to the sole use of cyclists (often to the detriment of other road and pavement users and at a massive cost to the tax payer - the overwhelming majority of whom won't ever use them).

But this is what you said...that has nothing to do with emission standards. You're clearly advocating land use be charged so therefore you must support the same for cycle lanes. That's not whataboutery...that's pointing out the clear flaw in a flawed argument.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/cyclists-fined-city-police-london-bank-junction-b1152140.html It looks like red-light jumping cyclists might become a nice revenue generation opportunity for councils...I wonder how long it is before Southwark catches-on to this missed opportunity!! 😉 I suspect being forced to sit in the cab of an HGV to see how little they can see is a humbling and sobering experience for red-light jumping cyclists and probably sends a very powerful message to them about the dangers of jumping lights.

So, by that measure, I presume you would be happy to charge for use of cycle lanes then?