Conservative, independent and Green councillors have challenged a decision to make the part-time low-traffic neighbourhood in Greenwich and Blackheath permanent, meaning there will be a hearing about the issue at Woolwich Town Hall next month.
Streets east and west of Greenwich Park have been closed to through traffic during peak times on weekdays since November as part of long-running attempts to stop drivers using back roads as cut-throughs to avoid the A2, after residents complained of abuse and antisocial behaviour from rush-hour drivers.
Anthony Okereke, the Labour council leader, has approved making the scheme permanent with two modifications: allowing through traffic to use Royal Hill and Blissett Street in west Greenwich once again, and allowing Blue Badge holders to register two vehicles.
A report from council officers found that the scheme had slashed through traffic in streets either side of Greenwich Park, but admitted that it had exacerbated rat-running in parts of Charlton, just east of the scheme boundary. The council intends to address this with “targeted mitigation measures” rather than extending the LTN to cover the area or scrapping the scheme altogether.
Charlie Davis, the Greenwich Conservatives’ deputy leader, has called in the decision, as has Lakshan Saldin, the independent councillor for Charlton Hornfair. Both have different views on the scheme: Davis wants it to be scrapped altogether, while Saldin wants a final decision deferred until traffic levels have stabilised following the opening of the Silvertown Tunnel.
They will argue their cases to a sub-committee of councillors on November 6, who can recommend the scheme be amended or scrapped.
Notably, Saldin’s call-in is seconded by Tamasin Rhymes, the borough’s only Green councillor. While the Greens have been supporters of low-traffic neighbourhoods, Rhymes’ support is an indication of the impact the current scheme has had on side roads in Charlton.
Saldin’s ward covers Eastcombe Avenue, a street affected by displaced traffic. He said that while low-traffic neighbourhoods were “a key tool” in reducing traffic, improving air quality and boosting road safety, “they do not exist in isolation and must be considered in terms of their individual merits, the extent to which they displace problems to other areas, and the mitigation of these issues”.
“We do not believe that at this point the data and mitigations presented support the recommended decision to make the scheme permanent,” he said.
Davis, an Eltham Town councillor, said: “The council’s own report on this scheme shows it has had a negligible impact on air quality and that traffic has increased on almost all boundary roads. This hasn’t reduced car usage, it has just pushed it elsewhere.
“The only reason to go ahead with making this scheme permanent six months early is because of Labour’s ideological obsession with inconveniencing residents who drive and the eye-popping amount of money they are currently making from doing it. The vast majority of residents do not want this scheme and Labour need to start listening to the people who put them in the town hall in the first place.”
The council has previously said that traffic levels fell by 6 per cent across the whole area covered, including boundary roads, during the trial, but there had been “slightly more traffic'” in boundary areas which it would work to mitigate.
At a council meeting last month it was revealed that Greenwich had collected £3.8 million in fines from the scheme, although officials had not recorded how many of the drivers hit with penalty charges were residents of the borough. Money collected from low-traffic neighbourhoods is ring-fenced for transport schemes, including funding the Freedom Pass.
At the same meeting, a resident in Victoria Way, one of the streets affected by the increase in traffic, discussed a petition for a zebra crossing that had been brought about because of difficulties crossing the road to reach a nursery.
Updated at 11.10pm to tidy up the story and add a further comment from Lakshan Saldin.
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