My opening speech was given to the London Society debate on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, Thursday 15th October 2020. The London Society is one of the oldest Civic Societies in the United Kingdom. The London Society is a British membership organisation established to encourage public interest and participation in urban planning and transport matters in London as well as to study and celebrate the capital’s unique history and character. For information on the Debate: https://www.londonsociety.org.uk/post/low-traffic-neighbourhood-debate

First I want to thank the London Society, On London and Dave Hill for inviting me here to this important debate on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTN’s). An issue that has agitated many Londoners. We are here discussing this issue here, virtually at the London Society. One of the oldest civic society in our country, encouraging public interest and participation in urban planning and transport matters in London.

We all agree that people and communities should be at the heart of urban planning, and their interest should come first, before bricks and mortars, or asset values. It is from this perspective of people before profits, the interests of Labour over Capital that I will be arguing in this debate. My opposition to Low Traffic Neighbourhoods not to them as a principle, but how they are being implemented. Myopia by policymakers, penalising working-class communities, for whom the car is a necessity not a choice, a means of income and not a luxury. Climate change is a real emergency, should be addressed on an equitable basis, not on the back of the working poor.

I will also be using observations from my experience as a Councillor and resident of Tower Hamlets and the East End. Tower Hamlets is the third richest local authority in England, bordering the City of London and containing within its borders the financial district of Canary Wharf. Yet it has the highest levels of poverty and deprivation. The highest child poverty rates in the country. One of the highest concentration of intergenerational overcrowding, as well as high levels of deprivation amongst the over 60s.

It was once a centre of manufacturing, for industrial London. The manufacturing is gone, but the communities who provided the labour to those factories are still there. Now working in the service economy, linked to the night-time economy, serviced by the largesse of our financial centres. Employed in labour-intensive, low paying precarious employment, where the car is not a luxury but a means of income. Employed as delivery drivers, cabbies, tradesmen, retail and leisure and hospitality. Working in poverty rather than working out of poverty. In my ward, I have estates where nearly a third of the households have income less than £18,000. One of the ways of coping with the effect of poverty, is through intergenerational family support, where the family car is a means of accessing care and support for the those who are vulnerable and yet living independently. Something which Lord Young, illustrated in his seminal work, Family and Kinship in East London. Yet when Covid-19 first hist our society, it was the same working class communities at great risk along with the nurses kept our society alive.  

Covid-19 has also exposed the vulnerabilities of these communities, and decades of failed urban regeneration and economic development. Tower Hamlets has one the youngest populations in London, yet recorded more than 10% of all London total deaths. At one point, at the height of the first wave,  local cemeteries refused to accept bodies from the borough, and to cope they had to dig trenches to accommodate the dead. Leaving in its wake grieving families who are now facing an economic fallout, in the same magnitude as the great depression. To illustrate I want to give two examples, from my ward. On Burdett Road there is a shopping parade of nearly 100 small independent businesses, nearly all have seen a reduction of their turnover from half to two thirds. At the same time, demand for food parcels at the local food bank has gone up from 50 to now 600 and still rising. 

It is an insult to these people, at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, the double victims of COVID-19, that the pandemic is used to roll out LTN’s that have a detrimental effect to their income and support networks, all in the name of Covid-19 or reducing inequalities. In fact studies on the mini Holland scheme in Waltham Forest show, that there is no overall reduction in air pollution or traffic but a net increase in property prices, accelerating more social cleansing and gentrification and the growth of in effect more gated communities. Divided neighbourhoods, eroding trust in public institutions and creating a new culture war in London, based on the haves and the have-nots. In London not being reliant on a car is a symbol of affluence, and is identified as so by many Londoners, therefore attack on car use is viewed as a form class warfare.

Now, as suggested by the chair I want to offer a framework for a more enlightened discussion on the matter of LTNs. In my view the ways LTNs are being implemented from my experience in Tower Hamlets are flouting the principles of the rule of law. An expected predominance of the local authority and public institutions by the community. A principle written about by the jurist A V Dicey in 1885, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution.

The way Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are being rolled out they are eroding the trust in our public institutions, leaving a vacuum for other political forces to occupy. Leaving a lasting scar of communities being done over through a permanent change to the physical environment. 

For  today’s proposed framework of discussion, I would like to use the 8 principles, of the rule of law, articulated by Lord Bingham in his seminal work The Rule of Law, to illustrate that the implementations of LTN’s are flouting the very basic democratic behaviour expected of public institutions by citizens. 

1. Are the LTN schemes accessible, intelligible, clear and predictable? No.

2. Are disagreements on proposed schemes, resolved by the exercise of law or by discretion? Discretion.

3. Are the schemes being equally applied to all residents? No.

4. Are local authorities, exercising their powers conferred in good faith, fairly, for the purpose of which they were conferred – reasonably and without exceeding the limits of such powers? No.

5. Do the implementation of such schemes adequately protect fundamental human rights? No.

6. Are local authorities providing a way of resolving disputes which the parties cannot resolve? No.

7. Are the consultation procedures fair? No.

8. Are local authorities complying with their obligations under the law? No.

The answer is no to all the questions above. Leaving entire communities aggrieved. Therefore it is on the basis of the above rule of law principles that the LTN rollouts should be stopped. An audit carried out of process and outcome, and mitigation provided that we have processes compliant with the rule of law, and outcomes of a public investment program that reduces and not increase inequalities in London.

It was John Locke who said, ‘where Law end, Tyranny begins.’ As history has shown wherever there is tyranny there will be resistance. 

Video of the Debate below: