SE22 Councillors: Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

An amended version of this was published by SE22 magazine.

The great Labour politician and founder of the NHS, Nye Bevan, once said “The language of priorities is the religion of socialism”. His visionary politics led to the creation of the modern welfare state. His priority was to protect the most vulnerable from the excesses of capitalism.

As a councillor in East Dulwich, the priorities I find myself juggling are not so clear cut. Nowhere is this truer than in the ongoing - and seemingly endless - discussion about traffic management. Here, we need to balance a range of competing interests. Drivers and pedestrians. Residents on main roads and those on the side streets. The needs of our local economy, and the existential threat of climate change. It can be impossible to find a solution that everyone likes so we often settle on the least-worst.

This summer we faced a huge challenge. As the lockdown began to ease it became clear that a tiny fraction were using public transport: capacity had dropped and many wanted to avoid it. Meanwhile, more people were driving and more people were cycling. 

Local authorities across the country faced the same two problems. How to make our roads safe for all types of road users? And how to keep emissions to a minimum? We all reached the same solution: to trial Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN).

Low traffic neighbourhoods aim to do two things. First, they try to reduce emissions overall, by encouraging cycling and walking by making the road network safer and more pleasant. In addition, they try to segregate cars from cyclists as much as possible - making it safer for both groups. The ward I represent, Goose Green, has a small number of such measures on the streets around East Dulwich station: various roads which were cut-throughs are now cul-de-sacs, dramatically reducing their motor traffic. Although not in Goose Green, there have been similar - and potentially more significant - changes in Dulwich Village, which have had a knock-on effect in East Dulwich.

The goal - to be absolutely clear - is to reduce traffic overall, not simply to move it from one road to another. At the moment, it is hard to measure its success. For a start, we always anticipated a transitional period with higher traffic whilst everyone grows accustomed to the new layout. But more significantly, car-use is rising across London so it is a complex job to assess whether the roads would be better or worse without the new measures. If you’re in a warm room and wear a sweater to go outside, you may still be cooler than you were before but that does not mean the jumper did not warm you.

Since these measures were introduced, we councillors have been inundated with comments from residents. Opinion is split: many residents have written to us with tales of their children playing in the street, but others are concerned by increased traffic on nearby roads. We are particularly aware of the issues on East Dulwich Grove. Covid-19 made it impossible to consult as widely as we would like before implementation. So that’s why the measures are only a trial. When the dust settles we will look carefully at the data and seek feedback from the community. At that point the measures can be maintained, amended or removed entirely. 

You can leave your comments on the council’s online portal: https://eastdulwichstreetspace.commonplace.is/comments Alternatively, feel free to email us. As always, we want to hear from you.