Rockets

Yes. But so does cycle infrastructure and look at the money that has been wasted on that cycle lane abomination that is now Sydenham Hill - surely the council can repurpose some of the millions made from LTN cameras to installing more EV infrastructure rather than ludicrously expensive cycle infrastructure that, in some places like Sydenham Hill, hardly gets used? It’s another very clear example of the council pouring money into those things it is ideologically wedded to and ignoring other measures that would have a positive impact on climate change. We would be a lot further progressed had the council taken a balanced approach rather than over-weighting cycling.

It seems a little odd that Southwark can put cameras up for the purposes of policing LTNs yet can't for speed related issues (or can't lobby the police to do so if it is their responsibility). Does anyone know why buses are the issue - I understand it for speed humps etc as they have a low long wheel base but cameras? Is the bus issue the key here that if the buses are forced to go 20 mph that it creates problems with their scheduling?

Maybe we are missing the point - maybe the plan is for medical student accommodation - Kings is within walking distance and is a huge teaching facility but the focus on student accommodation does seem a little odd so I am sure there is some background we are missing and the fact they are trying to convince people that these students will mov out of homes that will then be converted back to family homes is fanciful at best!

Is there some reason why they are focussing on student-accommodation - is there a planning loophole they get around by doing so? I am not entirely convinced by their rationale that by building student accommodation that this will free-up family homes as students will vacate those houses....that seems a bit of a stretch to say the least... When they refer to commercial units are they suggesting retail units - when you click on the commercial part it talks about light industrial and affordable workspace. Does anyone else suspect that these plans have been drawn up to satiate planning requirements and will probably change dramatically if they get permission?

But if you're committed to EVs then why not just proactively install it on every lamppost where it makes sense to? You know the same council takes an approach of "if you build the infrastructure they will come" when it comes to bike lanes so why not the same approach to EVs? Charging infrastructure if one of the biggest hurdles to adoption of EVs and most people don't have a driveway to charge their cars on so I just think the council has been caught sleeping at the wheel on EVs due to their ideological view of anything on 4-wheels. But I am very glad they seem to be taking proactive steps in the right direction - but saying they will go after people charging across the pavement does show that deep down they are still struggling to embrace it.

Yes the Barry Road road race was a thing - when was the last time it took place? If I remember rightly it involved running the length of the road and imbibing some alcoholic, ahem, refreshment at the Clock House and the Plough on the way?

You or your gang....sigh.... 20mph makes sense in some areas, less sense in others. It's a bit like the ludicrous decision to make a large section of the Westway flyover 30 mph, it makes no sense - this is the problem when the "meddling puritanical wokes" find themselves in positions of power they tend to make ludicrous decisions driven by ideology rather than pragmatism.

Malumbu, the item you post is a summary of the consultation process for speed interventions on Barry Road in East Dulwich - I am not sure what sort of views or engagements you are looking for or what point you are trying to make? Perhaps you could tell us if the interventions that document is proposing have been installed and had the desired effect - did speeds reduce on the back of this intervention? Barry Road has always been an issue for speeding cars.

Malumbu, you are trying to divert and derail threads again (you have been warned numerous times about this) - start a new thread and I will happily comment.

I think it's another one of your diversion tactics and probably needs a dedicated thread if you want to discuss it as I don't see how it has much to do with the Southwark Consultation topic in hand. I also think the Guardian needs to fire their picture editor/caption writer as the author of the comment piece says he lives in Levenshulme and the picture that carries the caption: ‘Walking around my local area, I couldn’t help but notice the sheer number of expensive and very large SUVs racing around the narrow streets and blocking pavements.’ ....is most definitely not Levenshulme but of Sloane Square in Chelsea!!! 😉

Sorry still laughing at this! Oh my goodness, really! Here's their email address, drop them a line, ask them the question: https://www.onedulwich.uk/contact. I bet you have more chance of them replying that anyone questioning the council about the LTN policy ever did! One Dulwich aren't posting them. I have posted most of them and I have nothing to do with One Dulwich - I have never spoken to any of the people that run it and I get their updates because I registered my support when they first started their campaign and anyone on that list gets emailed them. And the fact the posting of these updates seems so upset those who claim to "support local debate and democracy" suggests to me that I am absolutely doing the right thing! 😉 Bottom-line is that there are some who will do anything to try and quell the dissenting voices - I am so glad One Dulwich are doing what they are doing because they are providing a counter-balance to the council/pro-LTN lobby narrative. And just think, if they hadn't have been doing what they were doing to mobilise the support against the measures the council would have had free reign to roll out whatever they wanted. This is very much the democratic process in action...One Dulwich is acting as a people's voice when the council refused to hear what people were saying.

Because the council and councillors have repeatedly stated that they do not think that EVs are the answer and consider them as part of the "4-wheel" problem - they are 100% ideologically opposed to the idea. They have tried to pedal the narrative that EVs are still bad because of tyre and brake wear and even went as far as to invite a tyre specialist to one of their scrutiny committees to try and make the case but surely the bottom line is if you have to use a car then an EV is far better than a combustion engine version? The fact you have to apply to have a lamp-post converted seems another strong signal that really they do not want to be proactive around this. After I read your post I walked to Camberwell for a Sunday pint and counted (non-scientific research) the number of lamposts that could be used (discounting those that aren't in the right position or those on Greendale ;-)) for charging points and of the 50 or so I passed there were only 9 that had the facility. How much would it cost for the council to proactively fit them - surely they could divert some of the millions made on the LTN cameras in Dulwich Village to be a bit more proactive and encourage more to make the switch? Additionally, the fact they are saying in the consultation that they are going to start enforcing cross-pavement charging cable enforcement is another example of how they are not doing everything to try and enable it - build a bike shed in your front garden without permission and they'll turn a blind eye - but run a cable (the only times I have seen this the cable invariably has protection to ensure it is not a trip hazard) out to charge your EV and they'll prosecute you. That all speaks volumes.

Earls, Earl, Earl. All you have done is posted a passage from the report that validates what we were saying that traffic decreased inside the LTNs but increased outside of it...remember Cllr McAsh's statement that if everyone did not benefit from a reduction in traffic then they should be considered a failure? Let's look at what you posted... ...Mean falls in motor traffic on internal roads are around ten times greater than mean rises in motor traffic on boundary roads, adjusting for background trends... the results indicate that motor traffic has been reduced, and only a small proportion re-routed to boundary roads. This is suggested by the mean increase of 82 vehicles per day on each boundary road being much lower than the mean reduction of 815 vehicles on each internal road." ....what it says is the increase in traffic on the boundary road traffic is less than the decrease of traffic on the roads within the LTNs so somehow justifying LTNs as a success because that traffic from within the LTNs is not using the boundary roads and therefore it has magically "evaporated". All well and good until you actually analyse the data these reports are taken from and then you realise that the claims of "evaporation" are utter nonsense. This research uses the council's own monitoring data (the same data Aldred and Co) used for their reports which came to the same, (knowingly), flawed conclusions. Let's look at East Dulwich for an example (and there are more examples from every council who provided monitoring data) for some of the reasons why this data is seriously flawed and incomplete: The only "boundary road" Southwark monitored east of the DV LTNs was Lordship Lane. This makes the ludicrous assumption that displaced traffic would only use Lordship Lane to avoid the LTNs - anyone who lives locally knows this is not the case. The council started to monitor Underhill but never published the results but talk to anyone who lives near there and they will tell you the traffic increased significantly post LTNs, likewise there was no monitoring on East Dulwich Road, Barry Road or Crystal Palace Road - in fact absolutely nothing east of Lordship Lane and nothing south of the interventions on Dulwich Common (although I think their excuse on Dulwich Common was this is a TFL road) On the boundary roads they did monitor Southwark also used the limitations of pneumatic monitoring under 10km'h to their advantage They deliberately placed the monitoring strips close to junctions to ensure slow moving traffic was rolling over them In fact, the Lordship Lane South monitoring strip started its monitoring life near the bus stop just up from Court Lane (going towards Goose Green near the crossing refuge) but then, mysteriously, moved to just before the junction of Melford Road (between that and the entrance to Byron Court) where the road narrows and traffic crawls (actually further towards the Grove Tavern from where it is indicated on the council's own map below). So, the research is very misleading and, I suspect, knowingly so, so that supporters will wave it around showing that the LTNs have been a "great success" because they know full-well that those who support them will lean heavily on their own confirmation-bias and not actually bother to look at the detail or properly read and understand what the reports says or detail behind it.

Malumbu, you've done it again.... Some clips from the report you link to.... The Department for Transport (DfT, ‘The Department’) has made little progress against its objectives to increase active travel and it is not on track to meet its 2025 targets. There has been no sustained increase in either walking or cycling since DfT set its objectives in 2017. There has been no sustained increase in cycling rates and, in some cases, for example the proportion of children walking to school, levels of activity are lower now than when the targets were set. And I would be very surprised if Sustrans were to diss active travel - they are responsible for the roll-out of a lot of the active travel measures so they are part of the problem that has failed to deliver. So blaming a lack of spending as part of the reason for the failure is completely understandable from them! 😉 - they are trying to cover their own backsides! Can we all agree that the billions invested in active travel have failed thus far - can anyone (bar Aldred/ Goodman and co) show that they have come close to delivering on their goals?

Yes I can't help but think that the warning shots fired by the government means that councils like Southwark now actually have to play by the rules and can no longer get away with half the things they were doing before.

Agree with a lot that's being suggested in the documents (and hurrah for a walking plan - better late than never but my goodness that plan is lacking anything of any substance!!!) but do wonder how much of the cycle plan infrastructure for parking and storage is actually e-bike infrastructure. I do wonder how much of a catalyst for a lot of the cycle proposals is actually to satiate the commercial demands of Lime etc. Also, how is the council publicising these consultations and what is their objective? Kind of surprised that as someone who has contributed to many consultations previously I am not alerted to the existence of these new ones and then when I look at the questions I do wonder how the council might be using them (especially with the various lobby groups). To be fair I wish the council had made some of these commitments three years ago when the opportunity was ripe to make tangible change - unfortunately they got seduced by the cycle lobby and followed a single (cycle) path! 😉 Be warned, they do seem to be making a commitment/statement to more LTNs (might be worth responding to the consultation for that one to make your thoughts clear on that - and as someone who got caught in the awful traffic coming down Red Post Hill this evening - my goodness is it always that bad - you have to wonder how the council things more LTNs are going to be a good thing): • Shared carriageways: Most of the roads in Southwark aren’t suitable for segregated cycle lanes, they also don’t have sufficient space, but these are the roads that connect peoples homes and destinations. We must make these roads as safe as possible by reducing through traffic and making roads safer where necessary. We will do this by installing bus gates and modal filters that remove through traffic and installing traffic calming measures to reduce the speed of motor vehicles. Thank goodness they have a dedicated EV plan as Southwark has been woefully neglectful of this (the report states that the council has just 15 charge points for it's entire electric fleet). Although the plan talks about creating EV charging spaces in CPZs - no mention of what the plans are in non-CPZ areas. In the EV plan why are they using Southwark Transport Mode Share data from 2017/`8 to 2019/2020? The source they quote is from TFL and TFL has published figures up to 2022. Is it because since 2020 some modes have shifted that doesn't help the council's narrative? The council also seem to be warning that they will be coming after anyone who charges their EV from their home via cables that cross the footpath - which seems a little unfair and probably seen as a revenue generating opportunity for them.

But the public accounts committee says that in many cases walking to school is now lower than pre-pandemic. Could it be that many of those cycling to school we see in the area have actually swapped from walking - which is a net loss for active travel? Not sure what your point is here - Southwark has always had high cycling rates - and has always scored highly in the Healthy Streets scorecard - which I am afraid to tell you is sponsored by the likes of the LCC and Sustrans and has Dr Rachel Aldred as their coalition adviser....;-) Have you asked them? As I said before, it only seems to be those who would rather there not be a voice of reason or another opinion beyond the council's and their active travel lobbyists in this debate who are concerned about who is behind One Dulwich. And as I said before are you pushing for the same transparency from Clean Air Dulwich, EDSTN Healthy Streets or The Friends of Dulwich Square to name but a few who sit on the other side of the debate? Honestly, live and let live. If you don't like what they say don't waste energy trying to find a way to rationalise your distaste for what they stand for - people have any opposing view to you - well that's democracy in play. Take a leaf out of my book I find a lot of what Clean Air Dulwich puts out utterly laughable and massively hypocritical and I pigeon hole it as such! 😉

5 days....wow! Has the capacity been increased from this year's event?

And therein you highlight a key flaw in your argument. Would you consider Dulwich as an inner London borough like, say Islington or Camden? Nope, not even close. And this is why Southwark have failed in their attempt to force CPZs in areas where there is no justification for them - an area where transport links are "poor". If you can't prove (or create in Southwark's case) parking pressures then CPZs are an absolute non-starter. And remember, Southwark claim their "mandate" for the CPZs came from, ahem, "research" done that was conducted in the north of the borough that included a large proportion of primary school children and students. Although, let's be honest, that was a futile exercise to retrofit that "research" they realised they had no mandate for the CPZs and went scrambling to find some mention of them somewhere and tried to gerrymander it and spin it to desperately reach the legal threshold. Clearly the council's lawyers told them that wasn't good enough!

Why is it disingenuous for OneDulwich to highlight a cross-party parliamentary report saying that the active travel measures are failing to deliver against their stated aims? Do you somehow think that Dulwich is single-handedly bucking the national trend? Just look at a graph in another report Malumbu kindly brought to our attention. Of course, I am sure we would love to be able to analyse the trends in Dulwich but the council stopped updating their Streetspace dashboard in September 2022 so there has been no data shared for over a year - I wonder why? On the subject of OneDulwich and their "transparency" I suggest you are only concerned about this because you would really prefer them not to be a voice for those within the community who do not believe the council is acting in good faith over LTNs and CPZs. Thank goodness they have been else the council would have had free reign to do as their please with zero accountability - I very much suggest that it is the actions of groups like One Dulwich that has meant the council have had to u-turn on their CPZ plans, that the scrutiny being forced by the likes of One Dulwich is forcing the council to rethink their plans - they are finally having to be accountable for their actions. I do also wonder if you share the same concerns about who Clean Air Dulwich are, or EDSTN Healthy Streets or the Melbourne Grove Residents association are and whether any of them have strong links to the council and the Labour party. If not, then I am sure that you are very concerned that the only source of data suggesting LTNs have been working were produced by a group being funded directly from the organisations who put the measures in and whose lead researchers are the ex-policy chair for the London Cycling Campaign and a researcher caught tearing down posters urging people to sign a petition against LTNs. In light of the cross-party parliamentary report one wonders whether there are now real questions being asked about the validity of those LTN research projects and whether the £1.5m invested to "independently" assess the impact of the LTNs was well spent - perhaps this will be something Labour's Covid Corruption Minister will take a look at ;-).

Zero need for CPZs across the whole of Dulwich. The council knows this and knows that the plans they just aborted did not pass the legal bar for what constitutes a proper consultation. They will be back to try again but will struggle to make the case because Dulwich residents clearly don't want them and, perhaps more importantly, there is no need for them. Except maybe in Cllr McAshs own ward near Lordship Lane but one suspects his own political career and survival takes precedent over the ideology he is willing to try and force on other neighbouring wards.

Cllr McAsh's attempts to spin his way out of this seem to confirm your view Legal. https://southwarknews.co.uk/area/peckham/southwark-council-says-borough-wide-cpz-plans-were-within-the-law/ Some key points below from the article - which lead me to believe the council is going back and determining where they think they can 1) drum up enough support to justify a CPZ in smaller areas (a re-run of the tactic they used to "justify" LTNs on Melbourne Grove and 2) if they can't get majority support lean in on some other criteria that they are trying to create (a re-run of the "some school kids in the north of the borough thought CPZs might be a good thing so we will roll them out for you in the south of the borough" justification for the CPZ proposals in the first place). At the end of the day our elected officials are there to represent their constituents so if the majority of constituents do not agree with their proposals then they should not be pursuing them - simple as and what Cllr McAsh is saying sets a very dangerous precedent: However, it will now consult on new CPZs within the Queen’s Road, Dulwich Village and Nunhead areas. Southwark Council is now finalising the boundaries of those proposed CPZs and will provide “evidence to justify” them. In the upcoming consultations, Cllr McAsh said: “We will be including a question where people can very clearly say whether they support the proposals.” However, Cllr McAsh said these consultations were not “referenda”. Asked if an 80 per cent ‘no’ vote would be enough to prevent future CPZs, he said: “I’m not going into any hypotheticals because it would be based on a number of other different factors. “Resident feedback is one part of it but then looking at all the evidence that we’re gathering as well. That is all important.”

But look, as far as the pro-LTN lobby are concerned job done by the "researchers" because someone pushed this out as "proof" that "LTNs work" without actually spending any time looking at the data within the report and what it actually says. It's a well used tactic to try and convince people that your plans are delivering what you promised. It's the same as touting the ludicrous statement that there has been a "40% increase in cycling" - a case of never let the truth get in the way of, what you think, is a good story.....;-)

...at reducing traffic WITHIN LTN zones (pretty bleeding obvious) but with increases above the mean average on boundary roads....concluded using the same flawed council datasets Aldred et Al used. Specifically, this study found substantial reductions in motor traffic within scheme areas, while across boundary roads there was very little aggregate change (+0.7% mean average compared to background trends). We have not attempted to calculate overall traffic reduction due to these schemes, because aggregation is affected by the number of count points, and in most cases, more counters could have hypothetically been placed (particularly on internal roads, more numerous than boundary roads). However, the results indicate that motor traffic has been reduced, and only a small proportion re-routed to boundary roads.

Oh Malumbu - you are sailing very close to your old diversionary tactics again. But let me help you get back on track shall I (to avoid another censure from admin). Whilst you encourage people not to post or change their style I recommend you keep doing what you are doing because your posts are excellent - for example, did you actually read the report you just posted, like actually read it and took time to look at the conclusions and recommendations........I don't think you can have because it actually validates my position rather than yours...www.nao.org.uk/reports/active-travel-in-england/ Let me show you.....look at Page 10 of that report: 12 DfT’s progress to date suggests it will not achieve three of its four 2025 objectives for increasing active travel, and progress on the fourth is uncertain. DfT’s objectives relate to increasing overall walking and cycling activity, with specific objectives for school journeys and short journeys made in towns and cities. The latest survey data, from 2021, show little overall progress against its objectives. Whilst one measure was close to its 2025 target, this may reflect changes to travel patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic which appear not to have been sustained. For the other three, levels of activity are lower than they were when the first Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy was published in 2017. And now look at page 26 of that report... This shows that DfT made little progress against its active travel objectives between 2017 and 2019 (Figure 7 on pages 26 and 27). In 2020 and 2021, travel behaviour was significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as more people worked and attended school from home. Cycling increased in 2020, largely because of a surge in leisure cycling, before falling back in 2021. Progress in increasing the proportion of short journeys cycled or walked in towns and cities appears more positive but this may reflect the large decline in use of motor vehicles during the pandemic which appears not to have been sustained. The time-lag in DfT’s active travel statistics means that data for 2022 are not yet available and the longer-term impact of the pandemic on changes in active travel behaviour remains uncertain. Or Page 28.....what is the top graph showing.....exactly what many are arguing is not happening....