Dulwich LTNs: the winners and losers

A brief look at the social divide caused by the Dulwich LTNs – and how those who gain from the road closures are often the lobbyists who have the ear of the Council.

Two years ago, few of us had heard of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs). Now we have roads closed by planters, roads closed by cameras, and a sharply divided community (see ‘Who benefits from the LTNs?’, below).

The Dulwich scheme is socially unjust and deeply flawed. It has done nothing to reduce overall car use, increase active travel or improve air quality – it has just shifted traffic from one road to another, causing serious disruption, pollution and congestion.

Many of the winners can be found in the spider’s web of pro-LTN lobbyists and lobby groups who have been regularly consulted by local Dulwich councillors and Southwark council officers in recent years (see ‘The lobby groups/lobbyists’, below).

The local elections on 5 May 2022 are approaching fast. So far, leaflets received from the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrat candidates in the Dulwich area have recognised the LTNs as a key local issue, while those from the Labour Party haven’t mentioned the LTNs at all.

Who benefits from the LTNs?

In the December 2021 report, Council officers – and decision-maker Cllr Catherine Rose (councillor in Dulwich Wood ward) – decided that, on balance, the benefits of the Dulwich LTNs outweighed the harm to particular groups of people. We disagree. Please see the table below.

The winners

People who live on closed roads: Much less traffic passing their front doors and easier parking.

Cyclists (adults and children) using closed roads: Easier journeys from, for example, Melbourne Grove or Beauval Road to Dulwich Village Hamlet junior school.

Local Dulwich councillors: Only one local Dulwich councillor lives within an LTN (in Dulwich Village). But local councillors in all Dulwich wards have strongly backed the schemes.

Council officers: Southwark Council officers have pushed the LTNs in Dulwich, despite a) opposition from two-thirds of people who responded to the consultation, and b) data showing negligible overall improvements in air quality, traffic or cycling (once London-wide post-pandemic trends have been taken into account). What’s their motivation? The £8.8m in fines from vehicles driving through the restrictions? Other, less obvious, influences or reasons?

The lobby groups/lobbyists

A very small number of unelected individuals, often sitting on the steering groups/committees of more than one lobby group, are involved in shaping Council decisions on the Dulwich LTNs. The main influencers are:

1. London Cycling Campaign (LCC) and Living Streets.

The London Cycling Campaign and Living Streets (formerly the Pedestrians’ Association) joined forces in 2019 to promote LTNs across London and the UK, and have a direct line to councillors and council officers. You can see this in action if you look at the minutes of a meeting of Southwark’s Environment Scrutiny Commission on 4 December 2019.

All pro-LTN lobby groups in Dulwich have links to the London Cycling Campaign. These include Southwark Cyclists (a local group that is part of the LCC), Dulwich and Herne Hill Safe Routes to School (via its former chair), and the Dulwich Society’s Travel and Environment Committee (various committee members).

Southwark Cyclists and Living Streets both sit on two key Southwark Council stakeholder groups that advise on policy – the Cycling Joint Steering Group and the Walking Joint Steering Group – along with Dulwich and Herne Hill Safe Routes to School (the current secretary and the former chair, who is also a steering group member). These stakeholder groups have no regular representation from any of the ‘Losers’ group, above – for example, those who live on roads with displaced traffic, the elderly and disabled, shops and businesses, bus-users, GPs and community nurses and midwives.

A representative from Living Streets (a former Liberal Democrat councillor) sits permanently on Southwark Council’s Environment Scrutiny Commission. (In other words, Living Streets both advises the Council on policy and then checks to see whether it has complied with the advice.) A campaigner for Living Streets was also the lead consultant employed by Southwark Council to carry out its Equality Impact Assessment on the Dulwich LTNs.

2. Clean Air Dulwich

A Facebook and Twitter group that was set up in 2019. Has presented to Southwark Cyclists (see ‘Filter Your Street’ in the June 2020 newsletter) on how to campaign to have your street closed as part of an LTN. The key members all live on closed roads in the Dulwich Village or Melbourne Grove LTNs. The group has been awarded various sums in the past by local Dulwich Village ward councillors.

3. Dulwich and Herne Hill Safe Routes to School (SRS)

A campaign group founded in 2011 (we think) which has strongly supported the Dulwich LTNs throughout. Closely associated with all the above lobby groups – see the response of the former chair on receipt of an LCC award in 2020 here.

Statements issued by SRS (like the one from January 2021) supporting the LTNs appear to show the group taking this position on behalf of all local schools (with the Chief Operating Officer of Dulwich College as the group’s current chair), but it’s not clear whether the member schools have given SRS permission to do so. Several schools named as members on the SRS website have stressed that they wish to remain neutral on the issue of LTNs.

4. Friends of Dulwich Square

Recently awarded (again) £3,000 by local Dulwich Village ward councillors, this is a Twitter group and website run by lobbyists living on or near the closed junction who directly benefit from the road closures.

5. Peter Walker, Guardian political journalist and cycling blogger

See his 2016 post about campaigning to get his own street, Champion Hill, closed to traffic. Presented to Southwark Council on 4 December 2019 (same minutes as above). There was an interesting Twitter exchange recently between Peter Walker, Tom Robbins of the FT and Dulwich Village ward councillor Richard Leeming.

Conflict and division

Because of the sharp divide between winners and losers, and the Council’s tendency to consult only specific lobbyists and lobby groups, any possibility of rational discussion disappeared a long time ago. For example, those who are directly suffering as a result of the LTNs (increased congestion and pollution on their roads, difficulties giving or accessing health care, threatened livelihoods) are told that they are experiencing nothing more than ‘inconvenience’.

It’s very sad. Dulwich could have led the way with a traffic-reducing, pro-cycling, pro-walking scheme that improved overall air quality and worked for everyone. Instead we have conflict and division, which councillors are doing nothing to resolve.

And so we fight on.