LTN Discussion

[Rockets]

Perhaps it is time to move on. There are many things wrong in life but apart from venting your frustration you won't change things on LTNs. Council elections show that this was not a big enough issue to sway

Perhaps contact the private schools and ask them what their sustainable transport policies are and could they do more to discourage parents driving kids to school, or at least make sure they had a car full.

I was surprised how empty the Village was last week at 3 30, Southwark schools had yet to break up so even with charter, Dulwich and Bessemer primaries most traffic appears to be private school parents. Dulwich college has no restrictions on parking near by.

 

Time to move on....ha ha...you can't get this lounged Malumbu (you may have already realised this from your multiple previous attempts)....some of us don't like the way the our council has bullied their way to rolling these out. If we, as you suggest, stand by and let them get away with it, then they will deceive again and again. Don't turn a blind eye because one day you will not like something they (and I appreciate Southwark aren't your council do I am using the royal "they") do and you won't have a leg to stand on...be careful what you wish for...

[borderpaul]

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"

Whether you are for or against the LTNs, we should not forget that council acted in ways that many of us disagree with and hopefully they will be more democratic and listen to us in the future (unlikely but there is always hope). There is nothing wrong with holding people to account and reminding them of their past behaviour.

[heartblock]

"time to move on" how very Boris Johnson......

No, as long as traffic pollutes residential main roads and Councils implement changes by being untruthful about mandated policy.. moving on is a poor and pathetic option.

[CPR Dave]

It's obviously not time to move on in any way whatsoever.

The council physically imposed this disaster 2 years ago and they are still making "improvements" this month.

It's an absolute shit show that needs to be called out.

Its worse than that though because they had been planning the closures long before they implemented them, so the continuing failures are as a result of years of pudding headed planning.

[Spartacus]

Best quote of the day Dave

"PUDDING HEADED PLANNING"

made me laugh 😃

[Kathleen Olander]

It's obviously not time to move on in any way whatsoever.

The council physically imposed this disaster 2 years ago and they are still making "improvements" this month.

It's an absolute shit show that needs to be called out.

Its worse than that though because they had been planning the closures long before they implemented them, so the continuing failures are as a result of years of pudding headed planning.

 

This is spot on.

[Rockets]

Wow, just wow......this does not paint a good picture of our councillors and the way they treat other people (in this case TFL....abusing and reducing TFL staff to tears....). It shows how bad things have got that Will Norman had to intervene and TFL has told local councillors not to engage directly with them....I wonder if Kieron Williams will take any action against those involved - I very much doubt it given his track record with the likes of Leo Pollack? Given what we have seen from our Labour councillors during the LTN fiasco nothing comes as any surprise anymore and Labour councillors appear to be trying to bully their way to the resolution they want.

A reminder that it was Cllr Leeming who accidentally sent the report (that he was trying to get redacted before publication) to residents - it looks like Will Norman is trying to remind Cllr Rose that it was Leeming's mistake that was the trigger for this and the abuse of TFL staff is completely unwarranted.

This thread is really quite shocking and we deserve to hear a response from Cllr Rose and any of those councillors involved.

[ab29]

Dulwch labour councillors are a disgrace. Ideologs of the worst kind. This should be investigated. Can residents file an official complaint against the council?

[legalalien]

May be something worth emailing the relatively new CEO about - given she is a newcomer she might be prepared to look at the overall process (rather than the detail) with a set of fresh eyes?

Although, looking at the most recent internal audit report, she has a lot to be getting on with (not least the IT department, Major Works, the procurement process and a fair bit of other stuff (including this gem - "We found that there is no regular reporting on risk to the Chief Officer’s Team (COT) or to the departmental senior management teams; the CRR [corporate risk register] is not presented to any further groups for review and the local risk registers are not presented to any of the Council’s committees") - I wish her luck as it looks like a fairly stressful workload).

(for info, some stuff about the Movement Plan going forward at around p 84-86).

https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s109409/Internal%20Audit%20and%20Anti%20Fraud%20Progress%20Report%20for%20AGSC%2017%20October%202022.pdf

[malumbu]

This thread feels more and more like a witch hunt. Perfectly apt for Halloween I suppose.

[legalalien]

Oddly enough I commented to someone earlier today that one person’s “call

for accountability” was another person’s “witch hunt”.

Whatever the policy perspective, bad behaviour is bad behaviour and I really hope that TfL is standing up for its front line employees (sounds like they are) and that any apologies due are delivered.

[first mate]

Nicely put Legal.

[alice]

Perfect

[heartblock]

The problem is that the rationale for LTNs being implemented has proved false, as side road traffic has not increased - it has now been admitted by TFL the ‘increase’ was a statistical exercise.

Meanwhile cycling had been increasing pre-LTNs and the drop in car traffic due to Covid enforced home working that has now generated post Covid home working have both been used by Councils to ‘prove’ LTNs’ increase cycling and decrease traffic.

At the same time, real data produced by independent bodies that implicates badly planned and conceived partial road closures - erroneously labelled LTNs, as the causal factor for polluting and idling traffic on residential school roads - is hidden from the public and is such an inconvenient truth for Southwark Councillors, that TFL have also lost their patience with the Council.

I think as long as residents are impacted by pollution, dangerous traffic, noise and future road closures that are not wanted by the people living on that road, which will impact surrounding roads, it seems wise to keep the subject alive and not just roll-over and allow stupidity and cover-ups to reign without any exposure or counter-argument.

[legalalien]

In case anyone is interested here is a link to the TfL FOI response that includes the various emails mentioned above (always good to look at the whole thing to see whether any cherry picking is going on!)

It’s here:

https://foi.tfl.gov.uk/FOI-1459-2223/FOI-1459%20Redacted.pdf

I found this statement in Cllr Rose’s email to Will Norman quite striking:

“There are various issues and mistakes made in relation to how it was sent out to residents, which I am addressing with officers in Southwark. But the fundamental issue is how TfL approached the piece of work, which was intended to show improvements over time to bus journeys as a result of recent interventions. Instead we have a narrative of TfL being deemed to have passed a guilty verdict on the Dulwich Streetspace scheme. This has set our work back with this community on Croxted Road years in effect.”

In my view TfL should not be approaching its reports with the sort of agenda suggested (“intended to show etc…”, ), rather it should report the situation it observes without an intention to produce a particular conclusion (which it seems is what happened).

Do people think this is illustrative of the councillors’ view more generally of the purpose of the various traffic reports (ie they should be designed to support their positions on policy) or am I reading too much into this?

ETA

There is also this subsequent FOI response with the agenda for the Rose / Norman meeting which indicates some other issues under discussion re various buses, Camberwell station, and (highest priority) resetting the relationship re the Croxted etc discussions

https://foi.tfl.gov.uk/FOI-1727-2223/Emails_Redacted.pdf

[first mate]

LL,

Cllr Rose' use of language is simply astounding. It does read as though she, at least, views TFLs purpose is to create a narrative around changes that support and protect Cllr agendas, whatever the objective truth.

To then disover TFL officers were reduced to tears after a meeting with some Southwark Cllrs makes the whole thing look very stinky indeed.

It may be clumsy use of language on her part but I think it reads exactly as you say.

[Rockets]

And this from Cllr Rose is telling too....

I’m having to push back on the TfL report and defend the scheme again, it’s

important that we don’t end up back to square one in the public debate over Dulwich

and keeping the junction closure permanent, so any insights and support from your

enquiries would be much appreciated.

In other words - fix your report for us. It's clear councillors have been exerting a huge amount of pressure on TFL and the fact that Will Norman had to intervene speaks volumes. Also the fact that councillors are no longer allowed to reach out direct to TFL demonstrates where the problem stems from and it's clear the councillors (in their enthusiasm to maintain the - everything is great with the Dulwich LTNs narrative) have created huge problems and seem to have been bullying TFL staff to the point where they have been reduced to tears.

But none of this can come as a surprise to anyone who has seen how the council and councillors have treated residents with utter contempt from the day this all started and this is just the icing on the cake and reflective of people who are never held to account for their actions.

Our councillors should be ashamed of themselves and I really hope there has been some disciplinary proceedings against the protagonists - but I doubt it.

[Lebanums]

Sounds like the councillors are being defensive...

Out of interest, does anyone know if an environmental impact assessment was done for surrounding areas before the restrictions were put in place?

[CPR Dave]

This looks ripe for a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman.

If the council have been bullying TFL people to the point of tears that is an absolute outrage.

Shame on them

the people at TFL aren't elected officials implementing a dogmatic policy, they are normal people like you and me doing a civilian job. To be treated like this is unbelievable.

[Bic Basher]

We had the opportunity to kick out Leeming, Rose and co at the last local elections this year, but instead the majority of people once again simply went into default mode and voted Labour again, this time as a supposed two fingers up to the Tories for their mismanagement at a national level, which does nothing to affect change at the local level.

This time round, Labour are a much stronger party, taking seats from the Lib Dems in the north of the borough, so feel they have a mandate to introduce extensions to the LTN among other issues that will affect Southwark residents for the worse.

[legalalien]

The deadline for responding to the consultation on the Village junction design seems to have been extended to 20 November

https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/dulwich-village-streets-for-people-phase-2/

Does anyone else think it odd that the “ before and after” graphics for calton and court have versions of the “before” picture with the “open to traffic” version of the junction that hasn’t existed for years now? Is this to maximise the appeal of the options presented - or have all these side by side pictures - including the Turney Road closure, existed since before the initial “COVID emergency” junction closure, I wonder?

[Kathleen Olander]

The deadline for responding to the consultation on the Village junction design seems to have been extended to 20 November

https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/dulwich-village-streets-for-people-phase-2/

Does anyone else think it odd that the “ before and after” graphics for calton and court have versions of the “before” picture with the “open to traffic” version of the junction that hasn’t existed for years now? Is this to maximise the appeal of the options presented - or have all these side by side pictures - including the Turney Road closure, existed since before the initial “COVID emergency” junction closure, I wonder?

 

Yes. I thought that was strange too, the before graphics are wrong, they should be as they are now!

[Rockets]

It is very weird isn't it as the Turney Road one is accurate - is this another deliberate "oversight" by the council - you would have thought they would have been being very careful in that regard given the previous oversights in relation to LTNs?! This is a very misleading representation of the changes being suggested and, at best, reeks of a lack of care and professionalism on the part of the council, at worst looks like a deliberate attempt to manipulate the consultation.

I am perhaps more concerned by the extension of the deadline - do we know why it has been extended? If you remember the last time a deadline was extended it was done so so the council could send people around knocking on doors to pressgang people into responding as the initial responses didn't support the outcome they wanted.

Should we presume that the results are not to the council's liking again this time and they need more time to create a more positive outcome for them? It sounds like a lot of people in the area are very much against the closure of Turney Road (and it appears about 80% of the residents on the affected part of Turney Road itself)?

[Rockets]

We had the opportunity to kick out Leeming, Rose and co at the last local elections this year, but instead the majority of people once again simply went into default mode and voted Labour again, this time as a supposed two fingers up to the Tories for their mismanagement at a national level, which does nothing to affect change at the local level.

This time round, Labour are a much stronger party, taking seats from the Lib Dems in the north of the borough, so feel they have a mandate to introduce extensions to the LTN among other issues that will affect Southwark residents for the worse.

 

We are reaping what we sowed in that regard - I was amazed at the number of people who, despite their opposition to what councillors were doing locally with LTNs etc, voted Labour to stick it to Boris et al - needless to say they are now moaning about what Labour councillors are doing at a local level with the latest raft of LTN idiocy and I am reminding them they are a partial cause of the problem - now we have idiots running us at a national level and idiots running us at a local level!

It is clear though that the only witch-hunt has been waged by Labour councillors on TFL staff and let's hope someone holds them to account and I hope that even the most ardent pro-LTN supporter can see that Labour councillor behaviour has crossed a line and has been utterly unacceptable - I would expect this from Tories not from Labour.

[ab29]

JOIN THE PROTEST – AND PLEASE ENCOURAGE FAMILY, FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS TO GET INVOLVED

Southwark’s latest plans for the middle of Dulwich Village include

• closing Turney Road, and

• blocking the junction to Blue Badge holders, SEND vehicles, carers, and NHS workers like GPs and nurses.

In the past our voices have been ignored. But there’s a growing body of evidence to show that LTNs aren’t working (see “LTNs DON’T CUT TRAFFIC”, below) and – thanks to your emails – Southwark’s new CEO is now aware of the strong local opposition to the Dulwich scheme. So, if you haven’t already done so, please take a few minutes to object – and nudge family, friends and neighbours to make their voices heard.

HOW TO OBJECT

1. Fill in the survey

Southwark has extended the deadline for the survey to 20 November. You will have your own views, but our thoughts are:

• Question 2 We suggest you answer ‘Don’t support’, as no evidence has been provided to suggest that any of the core objectives could be delivered.

• Question 3 Please ask the Council to allow access for Blue Badge holders, GPs, community nurses and midwives, SEND transport and social care workers so that the most vulnerable in the community are looked after.

• Question 4 Please object to the closure of Turney Road because there is no information about the likely impact on access or traffic displacement on to surrounding roads. (“Frequently Asked Questions” doesn’t consider the wider area – Croxted Road, for example – but raises the possibility of yet more road closures in mitigation.)

• Question 5 cannot be answered, because there is no way of rejecting both design proposals and Questions 6 and 7 are irrelevant. We suggest you leave all these blank.

2. Make a complaint – or escalate an existing complaint

Email [email protected] to say (in your own words if possible) why you think the consultation process on the design of the Dulwich Village junction is deeply flawed. Your reasons could include any of the following:

• we have been given insufficient information to show the likely impact of the closure to motorised vehicles of either a) Turney Road, or b) two out of the four arms of the junction, in terms of access or traffic displacement to the wider Dulwich area;

• we were promised that engagement would take place with local people (residents, businesses, campaign groups) BEFORE concept designs were presented (Phase 1 interviewed only a ‘representative sample’ – and didn’t ask where people lived – so did not capture the views of the community);

• the deadline of 20 November is too rushed – only a few local groups have been given meetings with the Council;

• the online survey does not allow respondents to reject both design options;

• no local councillor is willing to champion the needs of residents or businesses who object to the scheme;

• no council officer is willing to act on legitimate concerns raised by local people about the lack of motorised access for those with protected characteristics, or for those who care for them.

If you are not happy with the response you receive (and we have yet to hear of anyone who is, as specific questions and concerns are not addressed), please take your complaint to the next stage. See Southwark’s website for details.

3. Email Southwark’s new chief executive

Email [email protected] to explain (in your own words if possible) why the consultation process is flawed (use any of the reasons above).

4. Sign the epetition

There’s an epetition on Southwark’s website (not ours but we support its aims) asking the Council to ensure access through the junction for the most vulnerable. Southwark assures us that all the long-running technical problems have now been fixed, but you may need to change your password before you can sign.

5. Contact One Dulwich if you’re a Blue Badge holder

If you’re a Blue Badge holder or otherwise car-dependent, or know or care for someone who is, please contact us at [email protected] and tell us how the junction closure is affecting you. Southwark could easily have contacted all local Blue Badge holders to ask for their views but hasn’t done so, so we plan to help them out by passing on this vital information.

LTNs DON’T CUT TRAFFIC

More evidence is emerging that LTNs are not cutting traffic – one of the main reasons for imposing them. According to an investigation by the Times, Department for Transport (DfT) figures show that vehicle miles driven rose by an average of 11.4% in the ten inner London boroughs that introduced LTNs in 2020. By contrast, in the two inner London boroughs that didn’t introduce LTNs, vehicle miles driven rose by an average of only 8.9%.

(In Southwark, which has ten LTNs, vehicle miles driven rose by 13% between 2020 and 2021.)

The figures don’t prove a link between LTNs and more miles being driven, but they do bear out what people in Dulwich see every day – that traffic isn’t evaporating but is just being displaced, and that journeys are much longer because of the road closures.

This investigation comes hot on the heels of revisions to DfT data, as we reported last month. The original data suggested that traffic had risen by almost 60% on minor roads in London between 2009 and 2019. Supporters of LTNs used this startling figure to justify road closures. But the revised DfT data shows that traffic on London’s minor roads has risen by a grand total of…zero.

In their main editorial on 26 October, the Times described LTNs as “an expensive and infuriating failure” and called on councils to “listen to the complaints and rethink hastily imposed schemes”. We couldn’t agree more.