The Chronicle (South Tyneside and Durham)
Removal of LTN at Jesmond is not end of road
COUNCIL BOSSES SAY TRIAL ACHIEVED MOST AIMS
THE scrapping of Jesmond’s Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) is “not the end” of efforts to overhaul the area’s roads, council bosses have insisted.
Controversial bollards that had blocked vehicles from using residential streets as rat runs between Osborne Road and Cradlewell since March 2023 were removed earlier this month, after almost a year of intense arguments.
Newcastle City Council decided to end the LTN’S 18-month trial early – saying that it was “clear” that the scheme had not worked for everyone, despite admitting that it had largely achieved its aims.
But a public consultation on the project had shown significant opposition among the 23,500 people who took part, with 73% of those who used the authority’s online Commonplace to comment platform staying they were against the LTN.
Supporters of the restrictions have accused the local authority of showing a “lack of leadership” over pollution and climate change, but bosses pledged on Thursday that they would return with new plans to get traffic off Jesmond’s streets.
Labour cabinet member Marion Williams said that “the Jesmond scheme has not gone” and said she hoped to drop the “horrible” LTN name.
Members of the Space for Jesmond campaign group challenged Coun Williams at a scrutiny panel earlier this week, where Sally Watson said it felt like the LTN was removed because it was “shouted down” by critics and its supporters were afraid to speak up.
She said: “The LTN in Jesmond was a success story in some ways, in fact it achieved all of its objectives.
“But the problem is that these things are really controversial and they can be difficult to introduce.
There are ways of managing it and I don’t think that was done very well in Jesmond.”
Fellow campaigner Ed Smith said that added inconvenience for drivers using Jesmond’s main roads was “baked into the expectation” as the council was deliberately trying to move traffic there.
Coun Williams said: “It was taking some people a mile and a half to get from their back door to their front door. The delays turning into Osborne Road were really disadvantaging people in Jesmond. The impact on businesses had to be taken into account as well.”
Coun Williams said the council still had money available from the Government cash that had funded the LTN and would use that to deliver the next version.
Lib Dem councillor Wendy Taylor said that Jesmond residents “weren’t properly consulted” last time and that the council ran into problems because the LTN was “imposed” on people.
She said the nearby measures to stop rat running through the Five Admirals Estate were not universally popular, but had been largely accepted because they had been supported by the majority who live on the estate during prior consultation.