Greenwich is forced to take action as emergency services obstruction complaints mount

New public disclosures reveal that the emergency services made strenuous efforts to prevent the use of modal filters in West Greenwich from July 2020, and that instances of critical delays to ambulances called to the area are resulting from the road blocks. See our link below to the full disclosure.

Efforts by services to head off the deadly risks posed by the ‘hard’ barriers that make the scheme were ignored until the recent appointment of new Transportation Cabinet Member, Sarah Merrill. Cllr Merrill has immediately put in hand the adjustment of three road blocks, which will be replaced by ANPR cameras, at Crooms Hill, Hyde Vale and Winforton Street, allowing for emergency vehicle access only.  

The move comes after a year of protest, not only from services, but also many residents and people working in the area, that the West Greenwich scheme, brought in last summer without consultation, causes severe congestion that not only delays vital individual journeys, but also prevents the emergency services from doing their job.  

We reveal the new disclosure, which includes correspondence on proposed schemes for East Greenwich and Woolwich, all of which were condemned by services. Evidence of critical and life-threatening delays is growing, together with pressure to withdraw the scheme entirely. See what the emergency services say.

Councillors now accept that successive closures in neighbouring areas, together with the loss of road space to the cycle superhighway, compounds congestion and is having a disastrous impact on borough residents and emergency services forced on to overcrowded main routes. A councillor has privately described the situation as the “perfect storm”. And Cllr Merrill has pledged to listen to residents to make specific changes in the short and medium term. In the long term she hopes to create a borough transport strategy in consultation with residents.

Consultations in July 2020, before the installation of the West Greenwich Scheme on 20 August 2020, received firm and detailed rejections of the modal filters in favour of ANPR (camera) control. The ambulance service also warned that the Council risked prosecution.  On 9 July 2020 the London Ambulance Service stated: “It is not acceptable to delay the ambulances reaching addresses or 999 calls within a restricted traffic area as any delay could result in death or permanent injury to a patient. HM Coroner has issued Prevent Future Death notices regarding these issues previously, so any scheme must easily allow emergency vehicle access at all times during the operation.” This warning was endorsed by both the Metropolitan Police and London Fire Brigade.  The letter referred to the Council’s liability for criminal proceedings under the Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act 2006.  

Greenwich also misled the public on the response of the Metropolitan Police Service, which has been consistently opposed to the scheme. Greenwich continues to claim on its website that the Met supports the scheme, when there were no official representations by the Service to this effect, only objections. GGTF has already reported on earlier disclosures and highlighted wrongful claims that the Met backed the scheme. (Scroll down to “Greenwich’s misleading claim of Met support for the traffic scheme was based on a routine road-rage incident”.)

The scheme was originally introduced under a Road Traffic Regulation Act s14(1) , a new measure enabling national pandemic protection for school pupils and shoppers, none of which was ever provided.

When this order was switched to an Experimental Traffic Order (ETO) commencing in September 2020, statutory consultees should have been approached again. This did not happen, and Council members seem to have been left in the dark about the July consultation and told that emergency services had no substantial objections to the ETO.  Councillors and staff at Greenwich have been unresponsive to representations and complaints about risks that have confronted the community for almost a year, including 1,400 signatories to a West Greenwich online petition that was initially ignored by the Council.

The new disclosures include data from 20 July 2020 onwards providing hard evidence on the high call-out rate for ambulances in Greenwich town centre, the impact of neighbouring ‘LTNs’ in East Greenwich and Woolwich, and the implications not only for reaching patients, but also, turning in the tight cul de sacs created by the scheme, long diversions, and potential delays in taking critically injured and ill patients to hospital.

In September 2020, for instance, a call to a ‘category 1’ (immediately life threatening) patient in King George Street was forced to take a ‘long diversion’ due to the closures on Point Hill, Winforton Street and Hyde Vale, resulting in a 5-6 minute delay.

The ambulance service, commenting on the new East Greenwich ‘LTN’, stated that existing road closures “are causing multiple delays for emergency services accessing patients and emergency calls”.  The letter asks Greenwich to “please be aware that residents in one London borough are alleging that a patient has died as a result of ambulance vehicles have to redirect around physical barriers” and notes that one London borough had removed all their schemes. “Can I suggest their reasoning is investigated before any further implementation is carried out in Greenwich?” the writer asks.

This request was repeated on 29 October 2020 in relation to plans for an additional modal filter to close Dabin Crescent: just two metres wide, this tiny service road provided an escape to Greenwich South Street for residents in Maidenstone Hill area.  GGTF drew attention to the fact that two-way access on this narrow road meant that cars inevitably mounted the one-metre pavement to pass.  Council correspondence stated that the road was used as a ‘rat run’ for A2 traffic, without mentioning that much of the increased traffic was coming from the newly gated community including not only Maidenstone Hill, but also Winforton Street, Dutton Street and Trinity Grove.  To read more [Link to] Health and social inequality

By the time the Dabin Crescent closure was due for consideration in October, Services pointed out that the pan-London group of TfL, emergency services and the boroughs, had decided that “the use of planters and lockable bollards should be limited”. The Dabin Crescent closure nevertheless went ahead in November, forcing more local traffic bound for Greenwich South Street on to Blackheath Hill. The cut-through was unacceptable, but nevertheless, one of the no-win scenarios set up by the scheme. Alternatives were never properly explored.

Although the correspondence from Greenwich officials constantly states that ‘monitoring’ would be conducted, it has been privately admitted that virtually nothing happened before or after the introduction of the ‘Hills and Vales’ scheme, and that monitoring of any kind has yet to be set up.