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  • About
  • Act Now
  • Traffic Congestion and Pollution
  • Health and Social Inequality

Trafalgar Road is overloaded and buses delayed by an underused Cycleway 4 and extra West & East LTN traffic  

RBG's Commonplace Consultation on the
East-West LTN ends on 24 June 

There's still time today to let Greenwich Council know what's wrong with the West-East Traffic Management Scheme and its impacts, and to ask for action NOW. The Consultation period on the East West Traffic Management Scheme was extended to 24 June.
Complete the Council's Commonplace consultation - even if you have already responded - and don't forget to alert friends and neighbours.  

https://greenersafergreenwich.commonplace.is/

On our own ACT NOW page, we list 10 tips to make your contributions count. And please read on for the messages we need to support opposition to the West East Scheme.

Despite widespread, and cogent, criticism about the Scheme, the Council has only suggested that changes might be made down the line, and that the experiment will continue to run until 'a decision is taken'. This means that - with 'modifications' - the scheme could stay in place until May 2026. The Council is resistant to systemic change and isn't counting the cost to the community.

Tell the Council that the Scheme's impact on prospects of local businesses at risk, bus users, and incoming key workers, cannot survive more delay as a result of RBG's failures to comprehend major economic and public service impacts of the scheme. Greenwich officers have failed to provide cogent traffic justification, or even to identify, for instance, the location of primary schools, and the consequences for recruitment and retention of key workers and school management.   
Safety has taken a back seat.
And our area is not 'greener' or 'safer' as a result of the scheme.


Tell the Council how you are affected and what modifications to the scheme would put this right.

TRANSPORT: Lengthened bus journey times are endemic - it's time to let Greenwich know how seriously boundary congestion is affecting people living in relative deprivation, deepening social injustice and denying opportunities to work and live our lives.
  • People earning less than £20,000 per year account for a third of all bus journeys in London. Impacts on the low-waged include reducing time available for paid work, as well as unavoidable family and health obligations.  
  • 10 per cent of day bus users are disabled. Delays mean that there are long waits in dirty, noisy and polluted conditions - often without suitable seating - and in many cases, difficulties exacerbated by floating bus stops.
  • 73 per cent of racial minorities use the bus more than once a week, the highest bus-using group.
  • Digital exclusion affects low wage earners and minorities such that paper tickets are more expensive, and political and corrective action is harder to access.
Source: London Travelwatch

Strong representations have already been made by residents and businesses to
  • end the dangerous additional congestion caused on the boundary roads
  • stop dangerous turning at ANPR road blocks;
  • end a policy that disrupts school management and transport;
  • restore unimpeded access for key workers, family carers, residents, service workers;
  • and restore the viability of vital local shops suffering declining footfall and disrupted deliveries resulting from the scheme.
  • remove danger and disadvantage for pedestrians
  • introduce traffic calming to reduce speeds and give more priority to vulnerable road users.

It is vital to communicate all these problems to the Councils consultation, as well as to your local Royal Borough of Greenwich councillor.  Although our local boundary roads are the responsibility of TFL, neither TFL - which funds and promotes LTNs - or Greenwich has taken into account impacts of the scheme on the state of Trafalgar Road and Blackheath Hill.

Complete the Council's Commonplace consultation at https://greenersafergreenwich.commonplace.is/
On our own ACT NOW page, we list 10 tips to make your points.

POLLUTION Tell the Council that their base-line pollution statistics are way out of date, and that ULEZ has reduced pollution far more than any impact West East LTN could possibly make - except for local impacts on the boundary roads.  ​

The London Assembly reports that:
"Cumulatively over a six-year period (2019 – 2024), air pollutant and carbon emissions across London are lower due to all phases of the ULEZ, compared to a scenario without the ULEZ. Specifically: 
  • ​NOX emissions are estimated to be 24 per cent lower. 
  • PM2.5 exhaust emissions are estimated to be 29 per cent lower. 
  • ​CO2 emissions are estimated to be two per cent lower.
  • In 2024 alone, NOX emissions are estimated to be between 33 per cent and 39 per cent lower across all boroughs than they would have been without the ULEZ and its expansions." 
​The Council's baseline emissions study for the area records pollution levels at 2019.  Therefore no pollution monitoring by the Council can safely be attributed to the scheme. Given the weight of the ULEZ effect, any increase in pollution over the period of the scheme is almost certainly attributable to the Scheme.
There's more on our Act Now page.

GOVERNANCE: Council Decisions in January and February 2022 ruled out an LTN for the 'West-East area', promising to consider ‘appropriate traffic calming measures on Maze Hill, Vanbrugh Hill and Westcombe Hill [to] address specific issues’ and to assess the Borough’s needs, considering wider impacts and further consultation. None of this was fulfilled. 
 
Instead, on 10 October 2022, the Authority hired Consultants PJA to start work on the scheme before any consultation was carried out.  
 
The Decision pre-empted engagement and consultation, and future Decisions of the authority. Read more about how Greenwich has gone back on its word.

​Tell the Council that it must show that it can be trusted to fulfil its pledges and act with transparency and honesty.

Strong representations have already been made by residents and businesses to
  • end the dangerous additional congestion caused on the boundary roads
  • stop dangerous turning at ANPR road blocks;
  • end a policy that disrupts school transport for local special needs children;
  • restore unimpeded access for key workers, family carers, residents, deliveries, and home and business service workers;
  • and restore the viability of vital local shops suffering declining footfall and disrupted deliveries resulting from the scheme.

RBG failed to research economic impacts of the scheme. Tell the Council that it's too late to 'wait and see' these impacts on businesses, and the people they serve, the low paid, disabled and digitally excluded.
Tell the Council the changes you want to see NOW.



How Greenwich has gone back on its word

An Experimental Order for an LTN in West Greenwich in 2020-2022 was allowed to expire because of its impacts, and local opposition. But Greenwich has taken advantage of TFL funding for LTNs to create the current scheme. Although the scheme is in fact two schemes, one in East Greenwich and the other in West Greenwich, legal technicalities allow further ‘experiments’ in the same area – West Greenwich.

​Since 2019 consultation responses from the local community have rejected by strong and increasing majorities ALL FIVE LTN SCHEMES put forward for consultation.
Read more on the Council’s secret decisions without consultation.​

Schools out but pupils face unacceptable traffic risk​ 

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 On Royal Hill, vehicle turning in Gloucester Circus coincides dangerously with peak pedestrian movement as parents and children head home from James Wolfe School: one of several schools where stress on vulnerable children and strain on hard-pressed families are further casualties of LTN orthodoxy.
​read more...

Emergency services challenges continue to undermine community safety


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The Council intransigence over safety implications of the traffic Scheme continues to put the community at risk.

​Read more...

Why the boundary policy is wrong

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The boundary system re-directs traffic from internal LTN 'residential' streets, forcing extra traffic on to main roads. While the boundaries are ignored and unconsidered by official consultation, social injustice is perpetuated.   
 
Read more...

Council baseline studies in 2023 revealed serious boundary issues 

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PJA Consultants' 2023 baseline studies showed  excessive pollution and accidents on the boundaries of the Scheme as well as social deprivation beyond the border of the scheme, which TFL's Liveable Streets - the scheme that promotes and funds the scheme - is intended to remedy, not make worse. 

​Read more... 

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