Rockets

Spot on. I would love to know who was asking whether they could by-pass internal governance processes, which in my company, would be reason enough to report someone to internal governance. And they are ignoring all the advice they are given - look at this on the two one-way street ideas about large vehicle movements (like bin lorries).

But @Earl Aelfheah if there were suspicions then they have been vindicated not by the search itself but by the content of the emails - the content is there for all to see - surely you can acknowledge that. The smoking gun is not from the muzzle of those sending the FOI but those who wrote the emails. Surely you must acknowledge that something odd is going on when you read @Lebanums summary? I mean this is a potential PR disaster for the council and the councillors seeking election. Can anyone trust Southwark Labour anymore? Everything many of us feared regarding the way councils treat these processes and their constituents is being realised right now. Surely even you cannot defend the council this time round?

It is. Southwark Labour are treating residents with utter contempt. They have been doing it for years over LTNs and clearly thought they could get away with it again. This is what happens when organisations get away with abusing their power - they keep doing it. To be fair @Earl Aelfheah I saw your summary and then opened one of the documents (emails and other reports pdf) and saw far more aligned with @Lebanums summary than yours - did you not upload that file? That's where the juicy staff is! It may also have struggled as so much of it is redacted.

Ha ha, looks like @Earl Aelfheah got some, ahem, AI hallucination thrown in to their summary....

To be fair, we don't actually know you do - we will just have to take your word for it. But your posting history does arose suspicions.... All we have to go on is that you registered on the forum recently, have only posted about your support for the Ryedale LTN, yet claimed to not know what an LTN is, yet when you do start decide to start repeating activist research on how "good" LTNs are, you then claim to be an academic yourself and have experience of peer-reviewed research yet you apply results from said activist research as an example of what the Ryedale LTN will do yet have not acknowledged that the Ryedale LTN is very, very different from what the research surveyed - you're basically taking research for apples and applying it to pears and I am not sure that's sound academia. Has TFL ever funded any studies not by Aldred, Goodman et al......? Perhaps it might be a good time for them to start- oh sorry they can't can they as the multi-million pound pot for it was all given to them.....;-) Bottom-line remains that those who have fast-tracked this through, seemingly trying to by-pass proper process and scrutiny, have a lot of questions to answer.

Some who did a door-to-door signature petition to the council in relation to the Dulwich Village LTNs were told it could not be considered as it was not an official council petition and the council have not proof the folks hadn't made it all up. Was the online one on the Southwark council petition site? Is that a resident-led survey - it cannot be a council one as the asterisk's in the notes are way too leading for that to have been allowed on a council document. If it is a resident-led survey then this is why the council, has previously, said they cannot be counted because clearly those doing the survey know the outcome they want when they wrote the survey and its validity and legitimacy can be questioned. Could someone share the FOI documents, or a summary, here? Unfortunately, this is how Southwark labour treat their constituents - clearly someone wanted to get this in very quickly and I am sure the real reason why will come out in the wash. With local elections around the corner this may be a step too far for some but is very reflective of the way our elected officials treat the process and people around anything to do with active travel. Clearly someone was desperate to get this in play as a matter of urgently and someone needs to explain why the council was trying to circumvent its own internal procedures. And if there are FOI documents asking the Southwark legal team about exposure from the approach they are taking, clearly someone knew they were trying to bend/break the rules and not follow the process. Perhaps @Tori Griffiths can do some digging?

Amazing isnt it...someone who earlier purported to not even know what LTN stood for suddenly appears to be an expert on peer-reviewed documents from cycle lobbyists! 😉 P.S. has anyone seen anything of @Moondoox recently? There do seem to be a few first time posters trying to throw their weight behind the council's plans....hmmmm Absolutely spot on and whilst @Tori Griffiths may be throwing a vote for me and we will do a consultation line there is very little evidence that Southwark Labour will ever listen to the view of residents. Their motto is something along the lines of "never let the views of local residents get in the way of an active travel intervention that the lobbyists asked us to do". Seemingly only data analysed by activist researchers (one of who was an LCC employee, the other who is an LTN poster vandal and an active and leading member of the West Dulwich LTN campaign group - her husband runs it apparently) makes these claims...I mean the council's own limited data showed a 6% increase in traffic on Underhill after the Dulwich LTNs went in....but hey ho... Unfortunately TFL and the Mayor's office don't tend to fund research that shows its interventions are not working.

It does make you wonder why local councillors were in such a rush to get this in place. @Tori Griffiths as a resident of one of the local streets what are your views on the likely impact to others? Do you have any idea how this got approved so quickly without a proper consultation? Around 80% of local residents rejected the Dulwich Square closure during the official consultation.

If the FOI is correct it appears some at the council could not see the merit of it….and if that is the case you have to ask why some within the council felt so compelled to push it through.

Again, did you experience an increase of traffic on Underhill Road after the Dulwich LTNs went in? Remember the council's limited monitoring showed traffic had increased by 6% on Underhill after the LTNs went in. Ryedale is a route vehicles take to and from Underhill. If what you claim is correct about Waze and traffic lights or if St Dunstan's becomes even more impassable at the junction with Forest Hill road vehicles will likely continue along Underhill to find another, quicker, route. The flaw in your argument is that this is reducing traffic using one road only. All this does is displace traffic to another neighborouring road. Ah, about those peer-reviewed results....;-). Don't get us started...just do a search for Anna Goodman LTN poster! 😉 Errr....how exactly? You're using "evidence" from distinct ring-fenced LTN areas rather than an LTN consisting of one isolated street. The council has also admitted, in the documentation that you have claimed to have read, that traffic will likely be displaced to St Dunstans. If I lived on Underhill I would not be backing this programme at all as it will not reduce traffic on Underhill at all, it may actually increase it. It's a bit like Turkeys voting for Christmas! Righty ho....so.......you dont know the LTN acronym, but you have seen them mentioned in the news but stayed out of the debate because it can feel quite hostile. Did you happen across all the Rachel Aldred/Anna Goodman research by a quick Internet search....;-)

Which acronyms do you not understand - not sure how anyone living in Dulwich does not know what an LTN is. Can I ask you then, did the traffic on your road increase over the last 5 years? The LTNs (low traffic neighbourhood - which is what the council are putting in on Ryedale) were put in after Covid. I am afraid that is not how this works in reality. The major road roads are now badly congested due to the Dulwich LTNs and are the slowest routes of the 3 or so options to get to the A205 Eastbound from Dulwich. So unless the new congestion caused by the Ryedale closure on roads like St Dunstans is so bad that it means that route is now, no longer, the fastest route. That is very, very unlikely to be the case. What is far more likely to happen is that new side road routes become the quickest route. LTNs pay Paul by robbing Peter. So any support for the Ryedale LTN does not fix a problem it merely moves the problem from one street to another. And actually, as a resident of Underhill, there is an very high percentage chance your road will become even busier when these measures go in - be careful what you wish for!

Firstly, welcome to the forum! Can you explain how you think that this one closer will push traffic back onto major roads - is it not more likely to push more traffic down Dunstan's and St Aidan's? Was the increase in traffic you reference worse post the Dulwich LTNs going in, which were designed to "push more traffic onto major roads" but, in fact, did the exact opposite as it created more congestion on major roads that led to people using roads like Underhill to circumnavigate the congestion on major roads? @Moondoox who said they live on Ryedale said exactly that. I mean, if the claims of an FOI discovering correspondence from the council saying: "If we could bypass the internal governance processes to move this project forward" "likely to be a contentious scheme, with not much evidence to justify it" then clearly they have little confidence that this is going to have the impact you so clearly need. I am afraid your streets "are being taken over by cars" due to the council's LTN roll-out in other parts of the area. This is the LTN displacement issue that no-one in the council or those who support the council's LTN efforts will ever want to admit to.

To be fair @malumbu this is a bit rich coming from you, you've posted over 7,000 times on this forum! 😉 You can't just try and shut down a conversation because you don't like the subject matter. As we have seen time and time gain, these interventions, however local, have wide ranging implications. Underhill and Ryedale are soaking up the displacement from the Dulwich LTNs. If someone has found council communications in an FOI that do state that: "If we could bypass the internal governance processes to move this project forward" "likely to be a contentious scheme, with not much evidence to justify it" then it is important for people across Dulwich to understand the behaviours of our elected officials - or would you prefer that all to remain hidden from view?

Oh yes it does......just because you refuse to acknowledge doesn't mean it is not happening. How on earth do you explain the 6% increase in traffic on Underhill during the limit post-LTN monitoring done by the council? Also @Moondoox who says they live on Ryedale acknowledged that traffic had increased post the other Dulwich interventions....are you claiming to know better than someone who lives on the road concerned.....? Well I do hope they share it far and wide because if they do have FOI info that shows that there is a smoking gun for you..... FOI's are increasingly becoming the only weapon left to residents to expose council hypocrisy.

Well @march46 increasingly it does because one filter makes low traffic for one street by forcing it onto another. I refer you to the forthcoming Ryedale closure for a living, breathing example if you want to see exactly that in effect.

Brace yourselves the surrounding streets.....the Ryedale displacement is heading your way soon..... Honestly, this is the biggest admission that LTNs don't work - "we need an LTN to deal with the fallout from the other LTNs"!

Yes clearly something was going on as they refused to include Underhill in their "success" dashboard.

@Penguin68 I suspect it was there long enough for the council to realise that monitoring it wasn't in their interests - which, if that is the case, may actually be environmental fraud.

@Earl Aelfheah you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Waze works that is clouding your opinion. It diverts cars on the fastest possible route using realtime data from other Waze users. I am afraid for you there are strong correlations between the filters and all the things you mention - so it may be your unhealthy denial of reality, and the likely causes of that, that is the challenge here. I mean even @Moondoox, who says they live on Ryedale, admitted traffic had become worse following the implementation of the interventions. Except of course for the limited monitoring the council put in on Underhill that showed a 6% increase in traffic levels post LTN implementation.....which, I hasten to add were not used as part of the famed "traffic overall" stat you like to use at proof of success. One day you will realise that these LTNs do nothing more than displace traffic. Unfortunately for you what is happening on Ryedale is a living and breathing validation that our argument is correct and yours is wrong.

@malumbu I completely understand the benefits of active travel, I also understand your point on tactics being used to try to get people out of cars. But what if the interventions deployed thus far are just increasing congestion and pollution and the oft-celebrated increases in cycling are being propped up by people jumping on Lime bikes instead of walking a and delivery riders on souped up e-bikes. To try and get it back on track just look at what we are talking about- Ryedale being closed to through traffic to try to manage the increased flow of traffic caused by the Dulwich LTN displacement. There is very little evidence that these measures do what those who support them promised. If all you're doing is chasing the displacement (which is exactly what is happening on Ryedale and a resident on here admits that) then the approach is failing. What is happening on Ryedale is an admission the LTNs have not worked. Maybe it is, in fact, my knowledge of when to use primary position which means I have only had a couple of hairy moments on my bike over the years. Maybe it is because I cycle acutely aware of when other road users may struggle to see me and cycle accordingly. Maybe It is because I don't cycle thinking I am the only road user that matters. Maybe it is because I obey all the rules that apply to me as a cyclist.

The council had to make it a bus gate else the buses would not be able to use Etherow Street as a bus stand. Clearly buses pose less of a danger to school users than other vehicles!

@Earl Aelfheah you seem to like to try to claim the interventions are getting people out of their cars. Given what is happening on Underhill or Ryedale the jury would seem to be out on that...what the interventions are clearly doing is displacing traffic from one road to another. As @Moondoox said, traffic on their road (Ryedale) increased due to the interventions. If the active travel policy implemented does nothing more than displaces traffic from one road to another then it is a failure, especially if it results in increased congestion and pollution.

@Earl Aelfheah London traffic peaked around 1999 and has been in decline ever since - by 2011 it had dropped by 11% from its peak and has continued it's downward path ever since.

Have you been cycling or cycling for commuting for long? It's interesting - I do think there is a generation of cyclists who have been conditioned to believe that cycling is dangerous and that the only way to make it safe is to have dedicated infrastructure. I can honestly say I can think of two instances where I nearly came a cropper due to bad driving and I was doing a lot of miles. I actually think the cycling lobby, by the way they have pitted bike vs car, have created a perceptual fear that is far worse than reality. And, rather conversely, have created a generation of cyclists who think the rules of the road do not apply to them. No that is not what I am saying, what I am pointing out is that the numbers of vehicles and traffic flows have been declining for years (long before the first LTN) yet congestion is getting worse and worse and is as bad as it has ever been. With that congestion comes increased pollution and I think TFL loses sight that the No.1 objective of active travel is to cut pollution yet many of their interventions (which seemed to be wholly focused on placating the cycle lobby) are actually increasing pollution. The London Assembly meeting was fascinating in that regard when the chair had to remind the TFL spokespeople that they cannot answer every question about congestion with an excuse based on affirmative action for active travel.

Congestion should be reducing as vehicular traffic has been declining in London for years and years. But at the same time you say you live on a road made busier by the interventions (Ryedale) and that road is the one where residents have had to lobby to get it turned into an LTN due to the increase in traffic, and no doubt pollution. But you still think that is a price worth paying (maybe I should ask your neighbours on Dunstan's if they feel the same way! ;-)) The notion that cycling was not safe before infrastructure is utter nonsense - I used to take routes that used plenty of back streets to wind my way to West London and it was wonderfully pleasant - granted keep your wits about you around the Battersea Park roundabout and the mini-roundabout hell on North End Road and it was a breeze. The only horrible thing was losing a pedal in a torrential downpour miles from home one night!