LTNS do ‘more harm than good’, says Green candidate

Low-traffic neighbourhoods can cause “more harm than good” and push cars and pollution on to main roads, Green Party councillors have said.

Candidates in the upcoming local elections have criticised LTNS in their local areas, with some even lobbying against the measures and signing petitions against them.

Some said the restrictions, which close some roads to through-traffic from cars in an effort to reduce pollution on residential streets, were poorly thought out, did not involve enough consultation, and had not been introduced alongside improvements to public transport and disability access.

A wave of LTNS were introduced in 2020 at the start of the pandemic and have proved divisive across London and in other cities including Birmingham and Oxford.

Designed to reduce car travel, they have attracted criticism from residents who say they have simply displaced traffic on to main roads, worsening air quality and congestion.

Maria Psaras, a Green Party candidate for Crystal Palace, south London, in Thursday’s local elections, last year wrote to a Croydon council member that they can “cause more harm than good”, and has said the borough’s LTN had been “poorly consulted, designed and implemented”.

In response to questions from the Open Our Roads Facebook group, which says it is “against poorly implemented LTN’S in Croydon”, she said she had signed a petition against the measures in a personal capacity “as mum and concerned citizen” before her candidacy was announced.

In Enfield, Charith Gunawardena, a Green councillor, who defected from the Labour Party in May last year, has campaigned against a local LTN because of complaints about pushing more traffic on to main roads.

He said it had a “disproportionate negative impact on people with protected characteristics, including those on the lowest incomes, those with disabilities, and ethnic minorities.”

Southwark Green Party told One Dulwich, a campaign group that opposes local road closures, that they had been “introduced with poor levels of engagement, the sense of predetermined consultation and with limited phasing around implementation”.

A Green Party spokesman said: “When implemented with sensitivity to local conditions and proper engagement with residents, low-traffic neighbourhoods are overwhelmingly popular.”