Backlash over LTNs gives Tories solace in the capital

Road-calming measures proved Labour ‘wasn’t listening to people’, claim new Conservative leaders

TORY councillors who bucked the trend in London’s council elections exploited unpopular policies including controversial low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) to secure support from traditional Labour voters.

Many working-class and ethnic minority voters turned to Conservative candidates in Harrow and Enfield as part of the backlash against unpopular road closure schemes.

For the first time since 2006, Harrow turned from Labour to the Tories, in part because town hall bosses introduced three LTNs in summer 2020.

Paul Osborn, the new Conservative leader of Harrow council, said voters repeatedly raise LTNs on the doorstep as proof the former Labour administration “wasn’t listening to people”.

The majority of the Labour administration in Enfield was more than halved – from 29 seats to 13 – after it made a second LTN permanent in March despite crowdfunded campaigns, petitions and protests from residents.

Labour won both seats in two wards affected by the schemes, but the Tories took all five seats in two other LTNaffected wards.

Supposed traffic-calming measures in the borough were responsible for 158 fire engine delays last year, compared with 102 in 2020.

Meanwhile, in London’s East End, Lutfur Rahman, founder of the independent Aspire Party, wasted no time pledging to scrap LTNs after his party seized control of Tower Hamlets last night. “Our roads have been closed, blocked up,” he said. “It’s contributing to more CO2 in the borough, when the idea was to reduce it. We’re going to look at our roads. We’re going to consult and reopen our roads.”

And in Croydon a Tory mayor was elected for the first time in its history.

Jason Perry was declared the south London borough’s first mayor after narrowly beating Val Shawcross, the Labour candidate.

Mr Perry had campaigned against the Labour-run council over what many had seen as acute financial failings.

He said: “We have had bankruptcy, we have had borrowing, we have had £1.6 billion in debt – £15,000 an hour borrowed under this council.

“We have had developers running amok across this borough, we have had Brick By Brick building on our green spaces and we have our council tenants living in squalor.”

In Harrow, Mr Osborn said the Tories now have all three seats in the borough’s Kenton ward, where there is a large Hindu community, many of whom were opposed to the Honeypot Lane cycle route.

A survey by this newspaper found just seven cyclists used that route in the space of six hours in November 2020.

The council then held a formal review and more than 80 per cent of residents and workers were opposed to the three cycle lanes.

They were permanently removed along with the four LTNs in April 2021.

Mr Osborn said: “People see these things pop up and money being spent.

“The Hindu community is thankfully supporting us and giving us a chance to do things. People were also already really annoyed about the level of council tax in Harrow. It has increased more than anywhere else in London this year.

“There’s countless examples of waste.”

He added that former Labour voters had expressed their annoyance because they were not initially consulted by the council before the LTNs and cycle lanes were introduced.

“Councils are trying to change the world but they should just be trying to change the borough. It is their absolute bread and butter,” he said.

Bob Blackman, the MP for Harrow East, pointed out that the newly elected Tory council would introduce an hour of free parking for residents outside shops to “counterbalance” the effects of road closures on local businesses. “It’s an absolutely stunning result. “I thought we’d take control but I didn’t think we’d get 31 seats out of 54,” Mr Blackman said.

“Regeneration schemes should make money for the local authority, but they have all been losing money.”

The council also suffered a public relations crisis after four Harrow council officials were arrested last month amid claims of “kickbacks” being paid to secure local authority contracts despite claims that little or no work was then being done.

Labour gains elsewhere in the capital mean there could be new active travel schemes, including in south-west London, after the party, elected in Wandsworth for the first time since the 1970s, vowed to create “protected cycle lanes”.

The previous Conservative council had suspended LTNs amid concerns emergency service vehicle response times were being thwarted owing to increased traffic and congestion.