Lee Green Low Traffic Neighbourhood to be made permanent
A Low Traffic Neighbourhood installed in Lee Green is set to become permanent.
The outcome of a review before Lewisham’s Mayor and Cabinet next week will the project retained for good including automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras permitting “Lewisham blue badge holders and emergency services” to pass through.
Public realm upgrades are planned:
– planters/trees and green spaces
– additional electric vehicle charging points
– additional bike hangars and cycle stands
– additional and/or improved pedestrian crossing points
– new seating
Funding for that work is to be sought from the annual Local Implementation Plan funding from TfL, though if unsuccessful Lewisham Council seek to use income from new developments and Section 106 and the Community Infrastructure Levy.
A consultation on the revised scheme introduced in late 2020 saw 56 per cent opposed and 46 per cent in favour or neutral from over 7000 responses.
Lewisham state despite this changes are needed to change travel behaviour.
One reason given is Lewisham Council’s Future Lewisham (2021) strategy. The report states one of the “core themes of the plan is to create is ‘a greener future’, building on the observed increase in walking and cycling locally, and all the other ways our environment
benefitted from behaviour changes over the last year.
The other core theme is ‘a healthy and well future’ and recognises that good health and wellbeing is dependent on many determinants including air quality.”
Borough differences
Greenwich also adopted a number of strategy’s with similar aims in recent years, though the first major planning Board meeting since adoption of the latest 2021 Carbon reduction Report again ignores calls to focus on walking and cycling improvements through public realm and streetscape investment.
Any remaining physical barriers will be removed for CCTV enforcement:
“It is recommended that all remaining physical modal filters be changed to camera enforced variants, to increase access for the emergency services, as well as to reduce vandalism and operational costs.
This recommendation will also be carried forward for future schemes of a similar nature, subject to relevant reviews, as well as similar measures outside the LTN across the borough.”
Buses and traffic
Traffic speeds have decreased since implementation with longer journey times on the A205.
Bus journey times have “fluctuated throughout the period” according to the report.
Taxis
Black cabs will not be able to pass through:
“A request was received from the United Cabbies Group for black cabs to have access to the Manor Park bus gate to the same degree as buses.
This request was given consideration however, it is not considered appropriate as it would compromise the degree to which the benefits of the scheme would be realised”.
In Greenwich borough, the council recently altered the Hills and Vales scheme in Greenwich to permit black cabs but not blue badge holders.
The Lee Green LTN was installed in July 2020 and revised in November that same year.
Click here to see a number of documents on this issue.
Of course it is. Despite pleas and petitions from local residents, Lewisham council has gone ahead and done what it wants. I live right on the doorstep of this mess and am not enjoying traffic choked roads and the smell of exhaust in my nostrils.
I think that’s good news. I wonder what could be done to ease the congestion in Blackheath as well.
Reopening the Hills and Vales for a start.
The question I would lean on is: should the Government be doing things that are against the will of the people?
I have lived inside what is now the Lee Green LTN for over 30 years. Some of the residents work for the Council and want their own roads to be quieter. That is all it is. Bicycles still choose to travel down the A205 or A20 because a detour through quiet backroads increases their journey time to work. It’s not pretty enough for a weekend cycle even though only a few years ago they spent £10m redoing the pavements while ignoring huge potholes on nearby major roads. It’s easy for some to support change when their house price goes up but it also puts up rent costs and inconveniences a lot more people than it benefits. When they first brought it in my journey time to the hospital went from 4-5 minutes to 40 minutes outside peak times. Prior to that it would have only been 15-20 minutes via the A205 but all the traffic had to go somewhere.
@Levi Akins: closing side roads shifts traffic onto the main roads. There is no escaping this fact.
It’s not the government for one and yes, authorities often do things that are unpopular for longer term benefits. Smoking springs to mind.
The thing many seem to forget is there’s nothing new about LTNs; they’ve exited for decades. They come in, many people complain, then people get used to them and a couple of years later people want them to remain. But recently some are stoking trouble for apparently political reasons.
The argument about value of homes doesn’t stack up and there’s many very expensive homes on the boundary and main roads and more planned at Leegate.
The bigger picture is there’s too many cars and how is that reduced? Without a program of action London will be like LA with never ending gridlock.
I think this point is key, there’s loads more cars on the road then capacity. There would be massive congestion without ltns anyway. The answer is to move ppl out of cars because it’s impossible to create more capacity. To do that you need better cycle and walking infrastructure… So ltns are the long term answer to the congestion that is being cited as the impact from ltns.
I don’t understand the logic of Greenwich council saying moving to camera-enforced filters reduces operational costs. Paying for one bollard and maintaining surely must be much less expensive than running a camera and paying to enforce it.
Simple disgusting there was huge opposition to the LTN enclaves which have created traffic displacement to poorer parts of the Borough
Making vehicles travel longer distances using more fuel to travel to the same destination is the logic of insanity & creates even more pollution but who cares when you can drastically increase your property values around Manor House gardens with your own personal enclave how many Lewisham councillors or employees live within this new Lee green enclave I wonder, these schemes are shambolic they create division and destroy community cohesion what’s next security gates and cameras to keep the peasants out truly appalling
@Bob: you don’t get gridlock if you can keep traffic moving. It is obstructions and road closures that cause problems.