A rush-hour low-traffic neighbourhood in parts of Greenwich and Blackheath will begin at the end of November, Greenwich Council has confirmed in a letter to local residents.
Though north-south through traffic will be barred from streets east and west of Greenwich Park between 7-10am and 3-7pm on weekdays. Those streets include Point Hill, Crooms Hill, Maze Hill, Vanbrugh Hill and Westcombe Hill.
Traffic will be unaffected at other times.
The trial measures will be introduced from Wednesday November 27.
The controversial “neighbourhood management project” will be enforced by cameras rather than physical roadblocks, with a wide range of exemptions, including for taxis, carers and those carrying people with special educational needs.
Greenwich Council had originally proposed a permanent ban on through traffic in the area, but watered the scheme down after a consultation, in which up to 79 per cent of respondents were opposed.
The roads where cameras will be put in place are:
West of Greenwich Park:
- Crooms Hill (junction with Burney Street) – Camera enforced traffic filter
- Circus Street (junction with Royal Hill) – Camera enforced traffic filter
- Royal Hill (junction with Royal Place) – Camera enforced traffic filter
- Royal Hill (junction with Point Hill) – Camera enforced traffic filter
- Winforton Street (junction with Point Hill) – Camera enforced traffic filter
- Maidenstone Hill (junction with Point Hill) – Camera enforced traffic filter
- Lindsell Street (junction with Greenwich South Street) – no entry (into Lindsell Street)
East of Greenwich Park:
- Westcombe Hill (junction with Station Crescent) – bus gate
- Halstow Road – Camera enforced traffic filter
- Vanbrugh Hill (junction with Dinsdale Road) – bus gate
- Maze Hill (junction with Tom Smith Close) – Camera enforced traffic filter
- St Johns Park (junction with Vanbrugh Park) – Camera enforced traffic filter
- Langton Way (junction with Old Dover Road) – Camera enforced traffic filter
Details of how to apply for an exemption are on the Greenwich Council website.
The scheme comes after complaints about high-traffic levels and antisocial behaviour from drivers in the area. It believes that motorists will be deterred from using the area as a cut-through, but opponents fear that they will simply use other back streets – such as in Charlton – instead.
Labour councillors had pushed back on some aspects of the scheme at a scrutiny meeting in July, calling for greater monitoring in surrounding areas such as Blackheath Hill and Charlton. The Conservative opposition leader, Matt Hartley, had called for it to be abandoned altogether, saying it was “clear there is nothing like majority consent yet the council is pressing ahead anyway”.
The council’s deputy leader Averil Lekau pushed ahead with the scheme, with extra monitoring. She said that the meeting: “How we all choose to move around our borough can impact whole communities in positive and negative ways. We have the fourth highest number of babies being hospitalised with respiratory tract infections as well as one of the highest levels of childhood obesity in London.
“Traffic is one of the main causes of air pollution and 31 per cent of the borough’s carbon emissions. By reducing it we can make it easier and safer for people to walk and cycle. This is one of the aims of our transport strategy, alongside calling for improvements to public transport and encouraging a shift to low emission vehicles.”
A review commissioned by the last government found that low-traffic neighbourhoods were effective in dealing with congestion within their areas, but there was a mixed record on boundary roads.
High traffic levels have bedevilled Greenwich for decades – particularly on the A2 and A206, which border the LTN area. Historic proposals include tunnels under the river Thames, under Greenwich Park, and under Blackheath.
The part-time LTN will be the latest road change to hit the area in the past five years. Another low traffic neighbourhood, covering west Greenwich only, had been put in place in August 2020 as part of emergency coronavirus measures, but a similar proposal had been planned for some time before that.
The west Greenwich scheme was blamed for congestion in east Greenwich streets such as Maze Hill and scrapped before the 2022 council elections.
Royal Parks also banned through traffic in Greenwich Park, while some capacity for vehicles was lost on Woolwich Road and Trafalgar Road with the addition of a segregated cycle lane.
Yet another major change will come in the spring, with the opening of the equally controversial Silvertown Tunnel, which Transport for London claims will “virtually eliminate” congestion around the Blackwall Tunnel, but opponents say will merely create congestion elsewhere. Both tunnels will be tolled when they open in the spring, a plan which has been in place since Boris Johnson’s mayoralty.
Despite the part-time LTN taking aim at people driving to central London, and the Silvertown Tunnel making it easier to drive to central London, Greenwich has chosen not to align the start date of its scheme with the tunnel opening.
The scheme will also put Greenwich Council under a rare degree of national scrutiny, coming a nine months after Lambeth Council suspended a low-traffic neighbourhood in Streatham that was blamed for grinding buses to a halt. Closer to home, an LTN in Lee Green and Hither Green was watered down by Lewisham Council after problems on the adjacent South Circular Road.
The town hall may also face militant protests – cameras used to enforce the ultra-low emissions zone have been vandalised across the outer suburbs, while only last week the council confirmed it was selling a car park in Charlton after signs warning of recently-introduced charges were painted over.
More details about the scheme are available at greenersafergreenwich.commonplace.is.
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