Choose a good councillor

If we want councillors who will represent our views on the Dulwich LTNs, we need to think very carefully about how we vote on 5 May.

The local elections on 5 May 2022 are fast approaching. One Dulwich has written to all the candidates to ask for their views on the Dulwich LTNs – a key election issue – and are waiting for their replies.

In the meantime, many supporters are getting in touch to ask for advice about how to vote in the elections.

One Dulwich is an apolitical organisation. We recognise and respect that our supporters have very different political views. What unites us, however, is our belief that the Dulwich LTNs are a flawed policy – socially unjust, discriminatory, and displacing rather than reducing traffic. If we want to elect local councillors who will represent our views on LTNs, how can we achieve this? Some general principles:

CHOOSE A CANDIDATE WHO WILL REPRESENT YOU NOT THE COUNCIL

• Local councillors should represent everyone in their ward. Following Southwark’s Code of Conduct, each councillor commits to ‘championing the needs of residents – the whole community and in a special way my constituents, including those who did not vote for me – and putting their interests first.’ The job of an elected councillor is not to explain council views to local people, but (the other way round) to explain the views of local people to the council.

FOCUS ON LOCAL NOT NATIONAL ISSUES

• Voting for a party in order to ‘send a message’ to central government still ends up with the election of an individual. You will be represented at a local level by that councillor for the next four years. Do you trust him/her to act on your behalf on all local issues fairly and objectively? Equally, not voting for a candidate because you don’t like what their party is doing at national level could lead to unexpected consequences – the ushering in, perhaps, of the compromise candidate least likely to represent local views (in other words, the most undesirable outcome).

THINK ABOUT THE NEXT FOUR YEARS

• LTNs are strongly supported by all Labour councillors in all Dulwich wards. If elected, Labour councillors may push for more LTNs in the Dulwich area (for example, in Herne Hill or North Dulwich). We are waiting for responses from all candidates standing in Dulwich wards, but so far the Conservative candidates for Dulwich Village and Dulwich Wood are against the LTNs, and the Liberal Democrat candidates for Dulwich Village are against the LTNs in Dulwich (Southwark Liberal Democrats are not, however, against LTNs in principle or elsewhere in the borough).

Statements from the Southwark Liberal Democrats and the Southwark Green Party to One Dulwich are critical of the Dulwich LTNs – more to follow on this – but the only Southwark party manifesto published so far that mentions scrapping the Dulwich LTNs is from the Conservative Party.

PICK SOMEONE WHO CAN WIN

• If you want councillors who will remove the Dulwich LTNs, vote for those most likely to win. Work out the odds. Each Dulwich ward has a different history of voting (see chart). Look at what has happened previously in your ward, and vote for the candidate who both a) pledges to remove the LTNs, and b) belongs to the party most likely to win.

The Council has pushed ahead with LTNs in Dulwich despite the fact that two-thirds of those who responded to the consultation rejected them.

This election finally gives us the chance to have our voices on the Dulwich LTNs heard and not ignored.