LTN: Our Healthy Streets - Dulwich: Phase 3

[hpsaucey]

exdulwicher Wrote:

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> Problem is that a lot of councils are effectively

> paddling around in circles awaiting the (delayed)

> Transport Decarbonisation Plan from Government.

> Boris, he of the massive over-promising and

> under-delivering, has pledged to cut carbon

> emissions by 78% by 2035 and so far, the policies

> to actually deliver on this incredibly ambitious

> target are limited to a few planters, some drivel

> about electric cars and some limited e-scooter

> trials.

>

> So councils are kind of lost - there's some

> reasonable new guidelines about building proper

> infrastructure (not bits of random paint long a

> pavement and calling it a cycle lane") but many

> councils, stuck with a perfect storm of

> traditionalist, car-centric councillors, funding

> cuts, emergence from Covid and a reluctance to

> change are scared of putting in place anything

> that is actually radical.

>

>

> What?s strange is that the company is a software

> consultancy so it seems as though this is

> something that?s going to involve an online

> platform or service...

>

> dxw do a lot with Government, councils plus stuff

> like housing associations. Specialists in digital

> public services which councils usually can't do

> in-house.

Spot on!!!

[Rockets]

redpost Wrote:

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> exdulwicher - too true, usual libertarian drivel

> from boris

>

> what is needed is road charging that's broadly

> revenue neutral (ie. remove fuel duty and recover

> revenue through road pricing), this government

> doesn't have the balls though for such a

> progressive move

To be fair I am not sure any government would have the balls for such a move.

But remember transport is only part of the problem - the much bigger (and tougher) nut to crack is buildings - that accounts for 79% of the emissions in Southwark - every factory, office and home needs addressing.

[legalalien]

On the need for significant central government funding point - which is (rightly) made frequently - I can?t see how Southwark can think that central government would fund Southwark to achieve a decarbonisation commitment that is even more radical than the government?s own, national commitment, particularly given Southwark is a Labour council. Seems to me like that would never happen.

I also don?t really understand why Southwark needs to spend so much on consultants to come up with something so general - a lot of the material in this is very general, and if all councils are producing strategies like this independently, that?s a lot of consultancy spend happening on duplicative stuff, rather than on genuinely borough specific things.

Slightly off topic but it seems to me it?s going to be difficult for Southwark (or anyone) to achieve a reduction in emissions while at the same time carrying out a massive house building plan?

[Rockets]

Legal - I suspect they would counter that since the govt cuts they no longer have the resources to do this stuff internally! ;-) Your point is a very relevant one though - we all know getting consultants to do anything is actually a very expensive way of doing it.

It reminds a lot of the time Lambeth spent money on putting billboard advertising up telling people that they didn't have enough money due to government cuts - but they could fund a billboard advertising campaign to tell people about how little money they had....

I do also think the focus on transport (and private cars in particular) is a diversion tactic to divert attention from areas like housing which are far greater contributors to emissions than private cars and that the private car is a convenient cause-celebre and easy target. It's clear even within the 15% of transportation's contribution to emission that the private car is a very small % of that and that buses and taxis are contributing far more.

[redpost]

Yet more fiction from rockets:

"buses and taxis are contributing far more."

truth:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1233533/transport-ghg-emissions-sources-united-kingdom-uk/

passenger cars are 55.4% of UK transport emissions

buses are 2.5%

furthermore, these are aggregate figures. If we were to base on per passenger km, there would be further order of magnitude in difference

[exdulwicher]

Legal - I suspect they would counter that since the govt cuts they no longer have the resources to do this stuff internally! winking smiley Your point is a very relevant one though - we all know getting consultants to do anything is actually a very expensive way of doing it.

On the other hand, there's a lot of expertise out there that would cost councils far more to keep "on hand" as employees. And if you do need something doing relatively short term (say over the course of 12-18 months), it's often far easier to get in consultants because recruiting the relevant expertise on short-term contracts is difficult and expensive.

Generally quicker and easier to buy in the relevant needs - on the face of it, an ?85k consultancy (which is the value of the dxw one) is expensive but compared to keeping that level of expert staffing as permanent employees of the council, it's actually very cheap.

[Angelina]

Consultants are often used to reduce risk (ie. "that epic failure was the result of us following advice from consultants") - rather than the potential risk of sacking someone senior

[Abe_froeman]

Redpost your accusation is completely out of order.

UK wide transport data is incomparable with Southwark data.

Come back with some relevant facts yourself instead of accusing people of making things up.

[legalalien]

Completely get that - same thing in lots of areas of law. The particular project described didn?t sound to me like something that needed an online platform at all, but who knows what they plan?

One of the consultancies I saw on this morning?s register seems to be being paid ?100k pa on a ?sole source because of time constraints basis?, where linked in seems to show that they guy concerned has been working there in an ?interim? post for 5 years, 2 years before founding the consultancy with another ex Southwark employee and three years after. That?s the kind of thing that rings alarm bells for me.

exdulwicher Wrote:

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> Legal - I suspect they would counter that since

> the govt cuts they no longer have the resources to

> do this stuff internally! winking smiley Your

> point is a very relevant one though - we all know

> getting consultants to do anything is actually a

> very expensive way of doing it.

>

> On the other hand, there's a lot of expertise out

> there that would cost councils far more to keep

> "on hand" as employees. And if you do need

> something doing relatively short term (say over

> the course of 12-18 months), it's often far easier

> to get in consultants because recruiting the

> relevant expertise on short-term contracts is

> difficult and expensive.

>

> Generally quicker and easier to buy in the

> relevant needs - on the face of it, an ?85k

> consultancy (which is the value of the dxw one) is

> expensive but compared to keeping that level of

> expert staffing as permanent employees of the

> council, it's actually very cheap.

[Penguin68]

passenger cars are 55.4% of UK transport emissions

The report you quote is on greenhouse gas emissions - mainly of course CO2 - which is intrinsically harmless (in the open air, not enclosed and sealed spaces), without it we would have no growing plants. The emissions of concern, to human health at least, are particulates, e.g. NOx and the output from wood burning stoves. These are what cause respiratory problems and exacerbate asthma, not CO2.

[And by the way the references above (I think, so many threads, so little time) to housing being a major problem is also about global warming and not healthy streets].

Oh, and if you do want to 'decarbonise' Southwark, may I suggest nuclear weapons, which will remove all those pesky carbon-based lifeforms which so plague us. Like us.

[Angelina]

The problem lies with us and our lifestyle choices which we will cling to as tightly as possible

[Rockets]

redpost Wrote:

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> Yet more fiction from rockets:

>

> "buses and taxis are contributing far more."

>

> truth:

>

> https://www.statista.com/statistics/1233533/transp

> ort-ghg-emissions-sources-united-kingdom-uk/

>

> passenger cars are 55.4% of UK transport

> emissions

>

> buses are 2.5%

>

> furthermore, these are aggregate figures. If we

> were to base on per passenger km, there would be

> further order of magnitude in difference

Redpost - come on, you should know by now that I will have done my research! ;-)

And you should know better than to throw UK data around when we are talking about London!

Attached are some stats on breakdown of pollution and from the London Council's Demystifying Air Pollution report from 2018.

Look at London's PM3 sources:

53% comes from road transport....

..of which taxis are the biggest contributor - 26%

Van and mini bus - 17%

Diesel car and petrol car on 14% each

TFL bus fleet - 13%

etc etc....

So this is why it is important for the council to show what the sources of pollution are - it seems a disproportionate amount of energy is being employed by the council to deposition cars when they are part of the problem not the only problem.

[redpost]

oh boy, here we go again

Rockets you made no mention of what emission you were banging on about, I assumed co2, my bad when in fact you were quoting PM10.

I've looked at rockets 2018 report and it refers to *central* london, you may be aware that we live in *suburban* london. In central london there is a huge concentration of terminating and through bus routes plus black cabs touting for business. In *central* london, private cars and commercial vehicles are also discouraged by the congestion charge, whereas buses and taxis are not subject to the congestion charge. Therefore in these *central* london figures we see huge contributions to pollution from tfl buses, non-tfl buses (ie. national express) and taxis.

The figures you quote have very little correlation to the situation in *suburban* East Dulwich.

[Abe_froeman]

They have far more correlation than the figures you have quoted for the whole of UK.

[redpost]

Abe_froeman Wrote:

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> Redpost your accusation is completely out of

> order.

>

> UK wide transport data is incomparable with

> Southwark data.

>

> Come back with some relevant facts yourself

> instead of accusing people of making things up.

UK wide data has a much much tighter correlation to southwark data then central london data

[redpost]

Abe_froeman Wrote:

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> They have far more correlation than the figures

> you have quoted for the whole of UK.

haha, you're joking right?

I'm lucky to see 5 black cabs a day in east dulwich

I've never seen a national express or green line bus in East Dulwich

there are literally 100's of bus routes passing through central london

please engage your brain

[Rockets]

Redpost - keep it civil. I was merely pointing out that your aggressive assertion that it was more fiction was incorrect on your part.

You know that we were referring to Southwark as a whole (as the report to which we were first referring) and you know that stretches to central London don?t you? You are also aware that Lordship Lane and other roads in the area are major bus routes?

I disagree with your assumption that UK wide data is more relevant than London data - I would be interested to hear why you think that is the case.

As you have looked at the report you will no doubt have seen the chart above the one on ?central London. It refers to NO2 sources in outer London. Again 50% of emissions are from road transport of which 20% are from TFL buses - maybe those green line buses are a little more prevalent all over London than you believe. Granted you may not see many taxis but that still accounts for 4% of NO2 emmissions in outer London and I would not consider Southwark outer London - there are plenty of taxis in the north of our borough.

So maybe you can now agree that there is far more fact in my assertions than fiction. I won?t hold my breath for an apology?.;-)

[malumbu]

An earlier post talked about government not supporting road user charging. I've posted before that this is the best option for addressing emissions of both pollutants and greenhouse gases. Labour reversed their position following the fuel tax protests (ultimately very damaging to the environment) and, although talked about recently by the Tories, gone onto the back burner. Sadly the car lobby is too strong.

Labour were bullish about tackling air quality but things went backwards under the coalition. I've attached an article by the then Mayor of London, who for whatever reason was quite interventionist on improving air quality, published in the Standard in the mid 10s. It is flowery, but very entertaining.

[malumbu]

Sorry it is from the Telegraph, I thought I had got over the paywall but just checked and only the first part of the document.

[legalalien]

Looks like there is an online meeting this Thurs to discuss traffic calming measures around Goodrich School - see https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?MId=7169. Described as a Dulwich Hill ward meeting so I guess it?s open to the public and you email the council officer for Zoom details - not entirely clear.

[legalalien]

Here?s the Council?s report on its performance against milestones, prepared for next week?s cabinet meeting. LTN stuff at around page 19-20: https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s99996/Appendix%202%20Performance%20Schedules%20Borough%20Plan%20Cabinet%20Report%2013072021.pdf. Slightly concerning reference to the fact that no real data on level of active travel in schools but that sensors, social media feeds and incoming correspondence suggest targets met. Is this where we?re at?

Worth looking at the whole document to get a sense of the various things the council is doing across the board.

[Rockets]

They also missed their cycle hangar target significantly - only installing 55 of the targeted 100 for the year.

It's incredible that they suggest they have met targets on the basis of anecdotal evidence like social media - not sure that stands up to scientific scrutiny.

It seems, per the thread with Cllr McAsh on the monitoring data, that this council is really struggling to get the one thing they promised and the one thing we all need....actual data. Now I wonder yhy that might be?

Also very interesting to read that Cllr McAsh says an independent analyst will be reviewing the monitoring data - I wonder who that analyst is.

[first mate]

In the interests of complete transparency shouldn't the council let us know which independent analyst they have hired?

[exdulwicher]

I do also think the focus on transport (and private cars in particular) is a diversion tactic to divert attention from areas like housing which are far greater contributors to emissions than private cars and that the private car is a convenient cause-celebre and easy target. It's clear even within the 15% of transportation's contribution to emission that the private car is a very small % of that and that buses and taxis are contributing far more.

Because it's not (solely) about emissions.

It's about traffic congestion, pollution (which you can use as a catch-all term for CO2, NOx, particulates...), road danger, use of public space and there are other related factors such as parking, the infrastructure to support car use (like petrol stations, EV charging points, car parks). And all of those things affect *everyone*, whether you own a car or not. And in terms of "emissions" per passenger km, buses are far better than cars. Buses are about the most efficient form of mass transit around in terms of road space, emissions and efficiency.

You can (to a certain extent) fix a lot of emissions-related problems by switching to EV. But that doesn't solve traffic congestion or road danger nor does it encourage active travel nor is it particularly equitable - there are plenty of people who can't afford or justify a switch to an EV, potentially a lot of people at the start of 3 or 5 year lease deals on their current car and so on.

You can't fix emissions from housing / buildings in the short term, especially on older properties - that's something that will require a huge rollout of Government grants for homeowners / landlords to do things like adding insulation, removing older boilers / woodburners etc.

So the current "best" answer is to address the traffic issues. Reduce congestion (by having fewer car journeys, balanced out by promoting / enabling active travel) and you reduce emissions and road danger and you need less space for parking.

[Rockets]

But ex- wouldn't it be nice if the council put as much effort into trying to change the mush larger sources of emissions and pollution beyond cars - they seem to be focussing an unprecented level of energy and attention on the private car and private car owner when much bigger issues remain - 79% of the problem comes from buildings.

We had another leaflet drop through the door today (it's almost daily the local printers must be loving this). This time from the coalition4dulwich lobbying to keep the changes and build on them.

I did laugh as the leaflet says that Dulwich was chosen for these measures for a number of reasons and lists them but the authors probably don't realise that many of the reasons they have cited are the reasons previously cited by Southwark as reasons NOT to have LTNs....;-) #doyourresearch.......