Issue - meetings

To consider any requests received in accordance with Standing Orders.

Deputation 1

Victoria Ward presented the deputation to Cabinet. The key points of the deputation are summarised as follows:

• LTNs were not in the Labour manifesto and nobody voted for them. It was claimed that before LTNs were introduced, 56% of residents did not want them and that, since then, the administration had failed to bring the public along with them on this journey.
• LTNs were based on DfT data that was withdrawn, due to a catalogue of errors. The Cabinet Member had advised residents that it was all about the data. However, the deputation party contended that every piece of data that had been used in support of LTNs had been discredited. Cabinet was asked to read the data and to understand it before pushing ahead.
• It was put forward that at a meeting in February, the Leader and Cabinet Member dismissed those opposing LTNs as alt-right and climate change deniers. This was a wholly unfair characterisation and showed contempt for residents.
• The interim report sought to simply support the policy, rather than interrogate it
• The main justifications for LTNs were summarised as; a comprehensive consultation, to reduce pollution, to help people live active and more healthier lives and to reduce collisions. It was suggested that all of these had failed and that rather: There had been a negligible impact on pollution; cycling had reduced since LTNs were created; there was no data available around collisions but that traffic had increased on roads.
• The other key justification given for introducing LTNs was around to reduce rat running. It was suggested that the success of this goal was undermined by poor data for the following reasons:
  • The baseline was taken after the introduction of the Enfield Bowes LTN, so traffic on boundary roads had already increased
  • The technology used did not count cars travelling under 10km, none of the sitting traffic is counted and the detail behind this has not been released
  • The way cars were counted for the baseline inflated the number of cars registered inside the LTNs prior to the change, which was admitted in the report but dismissed.
  • Even if the car count was down, it was suggested that the Council did not track how far those cars are travelling. Ms Ward advised that she travelled 4.4km further every time she left the house, so the car count was meaningless

• It was commented that the increase in traffic on boundary roads had directly led to a reduction in the number of buses and increased journey times.
• Government funding for the schemes had been dropped, they were widely acknowledged as being badly implemented and counterproductive. It was commented that the Transport Secretary told councils on Sunday to withdraw unpopular schemes.
• The Council had received 2.5k formal objections to the scheme and public opposition to the scheme was reflected in reduced a vote share at recent bye-elections.
• The deputation party requested that Cabinet look at the data in detail, not just the summary, and that they did not just  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9