Dulwich Village junction: an update
Since our last News update in October, we have been working hard on a number of fronts.
As registered supporters will know from our regular updates, we have met twice with Southwark Council’s new cabinet members Cllr Rose and Cllr Burgess to press for a better, and more socially just, area-wide solution. Some of us submitted public questions on the road closures to Southwark Council’s most recent cabinet meeting on 8 December, but all were rejected (although Cllr Rose has said that she will respond to them formally in due course).
Many of us are working hard on issues around monitoring air quality. We don’t understand how Southwark Council can conduct a traffic experiment affecting thousands of people in the south of the borough without robust before-and-after data. Many of you will have been following the recently re-opened inquest into Ella Kissi-Debrah’s death, and the arguments put forward that spikes in air pollution around the South Circular were a contributory factor. Given the possible harm to children caused by sudden increases in pollution, we believe it is crucial that the Council properly considers the effect of directing traffic 24/7 on to residential main roads, many with schools and health centres. Even an experiment lasting six months could cause significant harm.
We have been urging you all to send in your formal written objections to Phase 1 of the Dulwich Village Experimental Traffic Orders (see www.onedulwich.uk/objections). The closure of Dulwich Village junction – one of the few east-west routes across this part of the borough – has had a huge effect over a wide area, as the geographical spread of our support base shows (1,000 supporters in Dulwich and a further 800 living on affected roads, as you can see at www.onedulwich.uk/supporters). The official deadline for your objections (counting six months after the start date) is 17 December. This is not, incidentally, a date that has been publicised by the Council.
Despite making many forceful representations to the Council about the lack of access, through both the 24/7 and timed closures, for vulnerable groups and those looking after them (emergency vehicles, community midwives, carers, GPs), progress seems glacially slow. We have still not seen the Equality Impact Assessment that should have been carried out to look at how the road changes would affect these vulnerable groups: it is, apparently, an ‘evolving document’.
We have been talking to traders in Dulwich Village, Melbourne Grove and Lordship Lane about the effect of the road closures on their businesses. Many are significant local employers, responsible for the livelihoods of a number of local families, and are struggling to keep afloat. They do not believe that their concerns are being heard.
We are also talking to residents’ groups – both formal associations and more informal WhatsApp and email groups – so that we can better understand perspectives from different roads.
In addition to all this, we are trying (and often failing – we apologise) to answer the hundreds of emails you send us at onedulwich@gmail.com, many offering ideas and support, and many sharing personal stories of daily hardship because of traffic or access issues.
We believe that all these voices, and many more, are not being listened to by our local councillors. This is not a tenable position. Their role, after all, is to champion the needs of the whole community. We understand the passion of those who support the closures as they stand (and indeed the passion of those who would like more roads to be blocked for even longer periods of time). But we also believe that we cannot as a community allow this binary For/Against fight to continue. It is damaging the daily lives of many local people, both young and old.
It has, in addition, given licence to a level of aggression that makes even reasonable debate impossible. This unproductive polarisation is why, as a campaign group, we have always tried to find the middle ground. A solution that is fair and inclusive will need compromise from both ends of the spectrum.
We all support the Council’s main objectives – reducing traffic, improving air quality, and making walking and cycling safer and easier. But we are asking, with increasing urgency, for a democratic debate about how best to achieve this.
We are asking our Council to listen.