Rockets

Ha ha indeed....but it seems there is some argument about how much ULEZ expansion has contributed, despite what the mayor and his fan-boys claim!!! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68533703

Campaign Update | 11 Mar Southwark is treating us with contempt Councils must consult local people – but don’t have to act on the results. Southwark Council is very good at playing this game and is pushing ahead with its plans for the re-design of the Dulwich Village junction, even though the recently published results of its Phase 3 consultation show that 65% of those who responded are critical or not in favour. This percentage against is remarkably similar to the results of previous pointless consultations. The public consultation in Summer 2021 showed that 64% of people in Dulwich wanted the junction reopened. The statutory consultation in December 2021 had 69% of responses objecting to the closure of the junction, and 67% of those who responded to the Phase 2 public consultation last summer were critical or not in favour. This time the Council has to work very hard to spin the results, dismissing our comments about traffic displacement caused by the junction closure because we should have been talking about the design itself. But, as one respondent said, “Consulting on this design is like asking someone how they would like their arm to be cut off. I’d rather not have my arm cut off, thanks.” Two-thirds of local people do not support the 24/7 closure of this junction. The council is treating us with contempt. Lambeth Council scraps Streatham LTN After weeks of dire traffic conditions and bus chaos in and around the recently introduced Streatham Wells LTN, Lambeth is being forced to remove the scheme after an intervention by Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. We are writing to the Mayor and the Leader of Southwark Council pointing out that the situation in Dulwich is very similar, with traffic congestion on boundary roads substantially worse than it was before the LTNs went in, and bus services suffering as a result. As the Mayor is also the Chair of TfL, which published the 2022 report about the Dulwich Village LTN being the root cause of delays to the No. 3 bus, we hope he might want to boost his election chances in May among Southwark voters by calling for the Dulwich LTNs to be scrapped. If you would like to write to Sadiq Khan too, email him at [email protected] and copy in Leader of the Council [email protected] and decision-maker [email protected]. Thank you for your support. The One Dulwich Team

The problem is he is getting caught out trying to mislead people at every turn: BBC News - Doubts raised over Sadiq Khan's clean air claims https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68533703

Hmmm....interesting. No wonder the council aren't posting the results to people as they have done in other consultations (where they have been "victorious" because this is humiliating for the council - how did they misread the room so badly? Superb work by Dulwich residents to tell Southwark what they thought of the CPZ plans - the large number of responses (although is the 99% response rate claimed by the council correct) and the overwhelming "No" given by 75% of the respondents is a very strong message from residents, so strong that there is no way they can spin their way out of it. It is amazing what happens when the council is forced to allow residents to respond "yes/no" to the plans and they must be really glad they snuck a load of consultations in before they had to add a definitive response question. I do think any consultation without a "yes/no" needs to be run again. So only one road, Gilkes Crescent, out of 28 surveyed, said yes to a CPZ, every other street had a majority who said "no" (except Mitchel Place that had a 1 vote each way draw!!!). That is so definitive. No fudging possible. Dulwich has spoken. Now this is where it gets interesting because even the question about whether you want a CPZ if a neighbouring road gets it doesn't give the council the mandate to roll this out to Townley and Calton as both of them said no to that as well. On a road-by-road basis, three roads: Burbage Road, Gilkes Crescent and Milo Road would want parking restrictions if they were implemented on a neighbouring road. I do wonder whether residents may be able to get the whole scheme scrapped during the statutory consultation as, clearly, there is no majority support for this anywhere other than Gilkes Crescent and if the council only rolled this out on Gilkes they would have zero chance to create the displacement they are so desperate to create to try again in the future.

My concern is that I think, that to be effective, you need a London mayor that is in opposition to the party in government and I do worry that when Labour win the next general election Sadiq won't be as keen to fight Westminster as he has been under a Tory government, that he will put his own Labour-party career aspirations over the actual needs of Londoners.

Malumbu, you're lapping up the council spin (to be fair you're amongst friends though on here). The council may be using the term suspended to save face but the cameras and signage will be removed in two weeks and people were notified that from yesterday the cameras will no longer fine people for using tne roads that were closed. Removal of the cameras and signage is not a suspension...... As I was saying Labour councils are never very good at admitting they got something wrong..."sorry seems to be the hardest word"....;-)

But Streatham can't be tweaked because it has been withdrawn completely, the signs and cameras come down over the next two weeks (how much tax payers money has been wasted) and the cameras were switched off yesterday to allow traffic to flow again. What does that tell you? Clearly the council realised there was no tweak that was going to fix it. It was the sheer number of vehicles being forced down the Streatham High Road AFTER the LTNs went in that was the problem....thay pesky displacement side-effect of every LTN at play again there. Perhaps you would care to share why you think the Streatham LTN failed (except the roadworks of course given you were citing that as just one reason- and not because that's what you had heard the mayor and council blame it on) 😉 BTW the numbers of cars have been decreasing year on year in London and have been for some time (and this was happening long before the LTNs).

Because the cars no longer go down their road, they go down someone else's instead and they, naturally, like that...goodness me why is that so difficult to comprehend....? It hasn't worked in Streatham because the displaced traffic from the LTN caused gridlock along the Streatham High Road.

Huh...of course it has...most of it now goes a different way to avoid the closures, that's the point isn't it? Trust me, Streatham not working had nothing to do with the roadworks, that's just the usual Labour "never admit you got something wrong, it wasn't our fault, someone else is always to blame"! If it was they would not have u-turned so quickly, you don't give up that quickly when you have spent lots of taxpayers money on cameras and signage - they knew the moment it went in that it was flawed. Exactly the same thing happened at Loughborough Junction and the local MP had to intervene to get it fixed after LAS complained to them about the delays and the fact Lambeth were ignoring their pleas for them to fix the problem. You still haven't answered how you implement a London-wide LTN as you suggested. How does that work? What we are seeing here is a classic case of demonstrating that soundbiting is easy and that in the real world, real world challenges prevent the ideological utopia many imagine from actually materialising. Unfortunately the councils and the various lobby groups catalysing these plans tend to live in a dream world that can't actually exist.

But LTNs, despite the claims of those who support them, do nothing to reduce the number of cars- so where is that impetus coming from (and remember research carried out in the Brixton LTNs showed car ownership had increased not decreased since the measures went it). Without the trigger to reduce car usage all that LTNs do is make the problem of congestion and pollution worse (see Streatham for a very real example of that). LTNs have always been a very blunt instrument that were destined to fail exactly because they were the only tool councils deployed (and they only did that due to the lobbying efforts of the cycle lobby who convinced them they were the cure all). So how do you create a London-wide LTN then (that was your suggestion after all) - current LTNs close roads to through traffic. What is your proposed solution that takes a different approach?

I completely agree there are too many vehicles on the roads but LTNs don't solve that problem they just move them elsewhere - LTNs are a classic example of treating the symptoms and not the cause and actually exacerbate the problem. Doubly so in areas where other transport options are not great, which is why you have to question why Southwark decided to ignore its own advice and put LTNs in an area with poor PTAL scores. Exactly the same strange decision-making led to the Streatham LTN debacle. You really have to question who is making these decisions and whether they are fit for the job. The govt report suggests each LTN costs £250,000 with some costing up to £1.5m (it will be very interesting to see whete Southwark comes on that league table given the ludicrous costs for the original DV junction project)...that's a lot of money wasted on what amounts to nothing more than botched local councillor vanity projects.

Ha ha...The Guardian in "selectively plucking" shocker....can we file this as activist journalism to join the activist research that has been so prevalent. In other words Peter Walker either got played by someone leaking the bits to him they knew he would jump on to try and skew the perception of the report before it was published or he didn't read the whole report or ignored parts of it that didn't suit his agenda. Not a good look either way.....and look what happens, the misleading article gets used by those with a vested interest - what do you call a group of selective pluckers? The cycle lobby.... https://twitter.com/willnorman/status/1766130558306865196?s=19 https://twitter.com/London_Cycling/status/1766134542383956361?s=19 I do wonder whether the sudden appearance of monitoring strips all over Dulwich is linked to the government report; that Labour are worried and expecting the govt to try and make political capital over the way these have been rolled out, the lack of monitoring. Interesting that the govt report is based on local authority monitoring data and reports by Aldred, Goodman et al as that seems to be the only data that exists (and will no doubt be seen as self-serving and flawed by the govt). Actually the answer to my question may be in the Guardian report and I wonder whether there will be pressure to run a proper LTN consultation to "put residents first" as I suspect the lack of a yes/no response in Southwark's may be it's achilles heal from a legal perspective. Question is whether this can happen before Labour win the next election. A DfT spokesperson said: “We are clear that many local authorities have not put local residents first when implementing low-traffic neighbourhoods. We are backing motorists and will produce new guidance focused on the importance of securing strong local support.”

What are you suggesting, maybe put planters along every road inside the A205 perhaps or go further and ban any cars within the M25...? 😉 Not sure many would agree with your assumption that turning London in a huge LTN would actually be that smart a move! Seriously though, Lambeth put an LTN in in Streatham and look at the devastation it caused (the day after the LTN is removed and traffic is moving freely again). How do you rationalise/explain that? LTNs make congestion and pollution worse and will go down in history as one of mankinds most bluntest instrument and stupid idea, dreamt up and propped up by people who put ideology ahead of commonsense, logic and pragmatism (and were invariably linked to the cycle lobby. I do think people will look back and say, what on earth were they thinking....it was bleedingly obvious what was going to happen...traffic wouldn't evaporated it would merely take a different route (especially in areas where public transport is poor) this causing more congestion and pollution. Let's go back to my issue with LTNs - that for someone to have quieter streets within an LTN someone else has to have busier streets...is that fair or do you think that is just luck of the draw, that if you live on a boundary road then you just have to accept more traffic and pollution so your neighbours can have less?

I refer my right honourable friend to the Streatham Wells LTN to see how thay went.......;-) Your argument is way too simplistic. You can't make London one huge LTN it would cease to function. So then you do what the council has done which is choose which residents get the benefit and which residents live with the fallout...that is not socially just and very un-socialist. Melbourne Grove are happy, East Dulwich Grove not - how is that fair? Reducing traffic on my road may make me happier but that comes at the cost of someone else being unhappier. I do not want to live in a world where that is a trade off and nor should you.

Good, the article is designed to get the LTN fan-boys to cite it as proof of success (which people seem more than happy to do) when it is anything but. It's a distortion article. If you reduce traffic within the LTNs is only good if you are reducing traffic outside the LTNs as well rather than just displacing traffic onto other roads. As Cllr McAsh stated, if you're not decreasing traffic on all roads then they cannot be considered a success....take a look at the council's latest traffic monitoring dashboard to see how that is going... The basic premise of an LTN is to close some roads and squeeze more traffic down the open ones in tne hope it dissuades people from driving.

Ha ha... ..LTNs are popular with people who live "WITHIN" LTNs.. ...they reduce traffic volumes "within" their zones... Oh my oh my oh my....it's actually laughable that people cite this as proof of their success. I am sure those who lived within the Streatham Vale LTN loved them....everyone else slightly less so! Timing, it's all about timing...;-)

Yes LTNs are popular with people who live inside LTNs (which is exactly what that article says)....but that is hardly a surprise is it? I am sure the residents of Melbourne Grove are very happy with their LTN......can you not see the issue with the headline and narrative of the article on the basis of that? My goodness me...

Clearing citing the popularity of LTNs with people who live within them is no measure of their popularity nor does it warrant the misleading headline. The headline and stand first is slightly missing a key point don't you think and ever so slightly misleading...the editorial scrutiny process has always been weak at the Guardian but seems to be getting worse and worse. If a hyperactive 17 year old cub reporter had taken that copy to an editor the editor would have sent them away asking them to report the story and not try to create the story. As I said, another in a long-line of classic Peter Walker "exclusives". Whoever leaks these to him knows he will give them a very sympathetic myopic write-up.

Err no. I actually read the article rather than just the headline (heed my advice, Peter Walker's articles often tell a different story to his/or his sub-editor's headlines). The key is this paragraph here: A copy of the report seen by the Guardian said that polling carried out inside four sample LTNs for the DfT found that overall, twice as many local people supported them as opposed them. The key word phrases there being the polling carried out "inside" the LTNs. Most hyper-active 17 year olds could work out the issue with that....maybe Peter Walker hopes Guardian readers can't 😉

Ha ha....another classic myopic Peter Walker exclusive....government report suggests that LTNs are popular.....with people living within the LTNs....well no s+++ Sherlock.....my goodness me...

Yes and that's why it will be interesting to see the details of how the consultation results played out - last time the council tried to force a CPZ on the area they could only do it in the roads where they had "support" for it from residents (and some of that was generous use of support to say the least). I am deeply suspicious by lack of detail on the consultation results shared with the missive that they were reducing the area of the CPZ. Of course they have to get a CPZ in as that's the only way they can try to create parking pressure on neighbouring roads with the displacement caused by, for example, the teachers parking further away from the school - they also have to ensure they have places to patrol for that £12m contract they gave APCOA!!! 😉 The council clearly have taken a hell of a spanking from residents over the CPZ issue - amazing what happens when you are forced to run a fair and transparent consultation with a clear yes/no answer - perhaps we should all call for all of the previous consultations to be re-run and see how the council gets on with things like the DV junction/LTN consultation! They have just found out that their ability to cheat the system has come to an abrupt end. Power to the people!!! 😉

Human behaviour, especially that of a selfish nature, is often the very last thing to change...

Ha ha....proper analysis, and scratching beneath the surface is something the council and their fan-boys absolutely hate, so many are happy to slurp on the council Kool-Aid and take everything presented at face value! 😉

Clearly, despite the councils claims to the contrary in their decisions on the Dulwich Village CPZ, CPZs do nothing for school drop off issues with inconsiderate drop-off parking and unless you can stop people driving their children to school (with maybe school buses but look at the incessant moaning Clean Air Dulwich does about those at Alleyn's - you can never please some people) then inconsiderate drop-offs are going to have to be something we live with. School streets are great but invariably move the problem to the next closest street. Nigello is right, this issue impacts private and state schools in equal measure - to their point just go spend some time around Goodrich around drop off time!

I had the letter attached dropped through the door this morning and the council are going ahead with a much smaller CPZ zone following the consultation where, the council says: "some residents actively wanted controlled parking in their roads but the majority did not". Interesting that the council has not shared any detail from the consultation in the letter - usually they share the numbers and I think it will be worth looking at the responses for Calton and Townley to see if the CPZ has support on those roads (friends of ours on Calton suggested to us that they and their neighbours were against the measures). Perhaps now we can see why the council steadfastly refused to add "yes/no" questions to previous consultations as it seems once they do people are able to have their voices heard. Well done people of Dulwich - finally the council has had to listen to you (one wonders whether these results throw doubts on other consultations that were fudged by the council!