Southwark Council is “refusing to co-operate” with central government’s optional questionnaire on Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTNs) ahead of a nationwide review of the controversial schemes.
The Department for Transport’s national review, designed to check if LTNs have local support, was announced by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in July.
But Southwark Council has declined to fill in the Department for Transport’s initial questionnaire, which was optional, arguing it would not benefit residents.
In an email seen by the News, the Labour council’s cabinet member for transport branded the review a “political stunt”, echoing claims that Rishi Sunak wants to make environmental and transport issues a key electoral battleground ahead of the next election.
Campaign group One Dulwich, which opposes the Dulwich Village LTN, has said it is “astonished” by the council’s response, and that local residents are “suffering” from the schemes.
Disabled Dulwich Village pensioners say LTN has ‘spoiled’ their lives
LTNs have divided communities across the country ever since a flurry were introduced by local authorities, with the government’s support, during the first Covid-19 lockdown.
In 2020, Southwark Council introduced several traffic reduction schemes including in Walworth, Dulwich and Bermondsey.
The Dulwich Streetspace, arguably Southwark’s most contested scheme, bans all motor access through the junction, except emergency vehicles.
The council, and some residents, argue the restrictions have made the area less polluted and safer for cyclists and pedestrians.
Other residents have said the schemes are “undemocratic” pointing to statistics appearing to show widespread local opposition to the scheme.
The LTN review recently announced by the government now aims to check whether LTNs “are deployed fairly and with local support”.
One dataset, gathered by Southwark Council, showed an average of 67 per cent of respondents said they wanted LTNs in Dulwich Village, Champion Hill and East Dulwich “returned to their original state”.
As a first step to the LTN review, the government has asked local authorities to fill in questionnaires concerning the number and types of LTNs installed on their roads.
But according to The Guardian, local authorities were given just two weeks to return the “lengthy questionnaires”.
The Department for Transport has indicated the questionnaires were optional with councils asked to “voluntarily provide information”.
Cllr McAsh, Southwark Council’s cabinet member for transport issues. said: “The council’s resources – including officer time – are limited so we have to make choices regarding what to prioritise.
“This review did not seem to have any potential benefit for our residents and given the short timescales for this optional questionnaire, we decided to instead prioritise work to make our streets cleaner, greener and safer.”
But in a letter to the Department for Transport a One Dulwich spokesperson said the group was “astonished” to discover Southwark Council is refusing to cooperate”
They told us: “We look forward to the LTN review being published and expect that its findings will persuade the Government to force councils to remove LTNs that don’t work and have been imposed on residents without their consent.”
In an email sent to a local resident, Cllr McAsh said the LTN review “appears to be primarily a political stunt”.
The Conservative party narrowly won the Uxbridge by-election with many analysts saying Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s controversial Ultra Low Emission Zone expansion had delivered the victory.
This, some argue, has prompted Rishi Sunak to make environmental and transport issues a major issue in a bid to drum up electoral support.