Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. I thank the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for introducing this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee, and every one of those members of the public who chose to add their names to the petitions and take part in this debate.

I represent a constituency that has thankfully not had low-traffic neighbourhoods inflicted on it, and I am here to argue that we do not want them. We have seen how they operate next door in Enfield, and we do not want that kind of traffic mayhem transported into our borough. I want my constituents to be able to get where they want to go without too much unnecessary hassle.

A successful economy depends on movement and mobility, and schemes that deliberately cause traffic delays by restricting access to our road network cause economic damage. Ultimately, such schemes make the economy grow less vigorously than it would otherwise have done, and make everyone worse off than they would otherwise have been.

As we heard from the hon. Member for Battersea, this is not just an issue that impacts people who drive cars; it affects people in buses, taxis and vans, all of which are hit by the congestion caused by LTNs. We all know that local businesses suffer when their customers and suppliers find it harder to get to them, which is another consequence of the schemes. However, people’s simple freedom to live their lives in the way they want is also restricted by this kind of anti-car measure, which inflicts unnecessary delay and headaches on them.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

The right hon. Lady makes a powerful point that people should live their lives as freely as possible, without too many interventions, and should therefore be free to use their car. Does she not recognise that other road users, such as people who walk or cycle or young people who try to walk to school, but who feel that cars are endangering them or making them less free to use the road, are on the other side of the argument?

[Theresa Villiers]

Of course, I am a strong supporter of measures that have a positive impact on cycling safety, and we must ensure that the rules of the road strike the proper balance to protect vulnerable road users. However, I do not believe that LTNs are the way to deliver that.

[Theresa Villiers]

Of course, I accept that rat-running takes place, but again, I do not believe that LTNs are the right way to deal with that; there are much better alternative ways to manage traffic that should be considered first. I am especially concerned that older people, who perhaps do not find it as easy to get around as they used to, are particularly disadvantaged by LTN schemes, as that generation might be dependent on their cars or on taxi transport. It would certainly help if blue badge holders were exempted from the schemes, but that does not cover the millions of people with very real mobility impairments that are not serious enough to qualify for those badges.

On the rationale for the schemes, we are told that it is to get us out of our cars and make us walk and cycle, but what about the parents of young families who cannot simply load their young family on to a bicycle, as blithely advocated by the Mayor of London and Transport for London?

We also live in an era of increased awareness and concern regarding crimes against women, so we must also listen to the women who feel real fear and insecurity because an LTN means they can no longer be dropped off right outside their home by a taxi when they come home at night. They might find it more difficult to get taxi transport because they live in an LTN. The equalities impact of LTNs and a range of anti-car measures were not properly taken into account before the schemes were introduced.

As I have said before, I am a strong supporter of measures to improve cycling safety, but dogmatic measures forcing cars out of more and more road space are not the right answer and the air-quality benefits of LTNs are heavily contested. The additional congestion that they cause on main roads might worsen emissions in those locations, which are often places where people on lower incomes live, including many people from minority ethnic communities. Again, the equalities impact of the schemes is severe.

Traffic does not evaporate when we close roads, much as TfL would wish it to. It just moves to a different road. An area can be told to put up with increased emissions because a more affluent nearby street has demanded an LTN. Such projects can be extremely socially divisive, as has been clearly illustrated by the debate in places like Tower Hamlets.

Roads policy from the Mayor of London and London Labour boroughs has too often seemed to reflect the views of a limited number of vocal pressure groups, rather than the broader consensus of opinion and rather than embracing the views of women, minority ethnic communities, the elderly and the disabled. Consultation has far too often been inadequate, not least because it tends to focus only on the people who live in the street to be included in the LTN and ignores those who travel through those streets or the roads on to which traffic is displaced.

[Wera Hobhouse]

The right hon. Lady is being generous in accepting interventions, and I thank her for that. I used to be a councillor—not in my constituency but in another local authority—and the problem was always one of consultation, which I fully agree with. More people should be consulted on planning applications, but the argument is always about what is mandatory and what a councillor must do to consult, which is quite narrow. We know that councils are all cash-strapped and do not have the ability to consult more widely. Does she agree that we need a mandate to consult more widely, as well as the funds for that?

[Theresa Villiers]

If councils are not able to consult adequately, they should not introduce the schemes in the first place. Over the past 24 hours I have received emails from many people, particularly in London but beyond as well, which seem to me to be cries for help from people who are frustrated that their lives have been turned upside down by the schemes.

LTNs are an experiment that have failed. They harm our economy and our capital city, and they punish people just for trying to get around in a bus, a car or a taxi. It is time to halt the introduction of new LTNs and time for the Government and the Minister to intervene to start removing existing LTNs. The madness must stop.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Harris, and thank you for upgrading me to Sir Wera. We are having a good debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) on introducing it so thoroughly. I also congratulate the people who signed the petition so that we could have the debate. Of course, the whole point of these debates is that they come to the House because people want us to debate certain issues, and I am always in favour of doing so; it is important that we do.

In many of our local council areas, low-traffic neighbourhoods have become very contentious, with both opposition and support. The term LTN is new, but the concept is not: the planning principles of LTNs have been used in street design since at least the 1960s. The concept has suddenly become controversial because of the motives behind LTNs, such as reducing traffic and encouraging active travel, and because they are at odds with the Government’s new-found pro-driver policy.

Most of us are all sorts of things: we are motorists, we are pedestrians, and we are cyclists; we use the road in all sorts of ways. It is important to look at the issue in the round and to understand the different uses of the road by different users. It is particularly important, as has been mentioned, to ensure that vulnerable road users are not excluded from our streets. That is an important principle to which all local councils need to adhere.

In Bath, my local council has been very brave in introducing a wide range of LTNs—12 in total. That has created a lot of reasons for people to write to me. I have had 57 people write to me about LTNs, but there are 70,000 people in my constituency, so although 57 is a relatively large number, we have to think about the number of people as a proportion. We are usually written to by people who do not agree with what is being done, rather than by those who agree with what is being done. Among the 57 are people who agree with LTNs. One wrote recently:

“Dear Wera, I just wanted to write in support of these zones. As a cyclist (walker and motorist) they are wonderful for those neighbourhoods. I live on the…estate and there have been moans about the LTZ at Sidney place—I have not noticed a change in the congestion myself and fully support the trial.”

I congratulate my local council on having been brave, as well as on making the LTNs a trial. Councils have to be careful to support what they introduce with data, and I have challenged my own council to provide such data to local communities and to those who oppose LTNs. I have facilitated access between local groups who are opposed to a particular LTN and councillors and council officers, so that we have discussions and so that people understand what LTNs are for, what is being measured, what the council wants to achieve and how LTNs can improve our neighbourhoods. It is important that each council is transparent about what it wants to achieve, provides the data, and communicates and engages, as we have heard. The council must ensure that it includes as many people as possible in the debate about how it wants to move forward.

An official study commissioned by the Prime Minister, which was intended to show that LTNs are unwanted, concluded that they are genuinely popular, particularly once they are implemented. The Department for Transport surveyed residents in LTN trial areas in London, Birmingham, Wigan and York: 45% of respondents supported the schemes, 21% opposed them, and 58% were unaware that they lived in a low-traffic neighbourhood.

It is no wonder that the Government delayed the publication of the study, because ultimately it produced the opposite of what the Government thought it would produce. Despite the results of its own report, the Department for Transport has said that it will no longer provide central funding for LTNs, and there are also plans to cut councils off from Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency databases.

This debate must be evidence-led. As I have said, it should be about the evidence, not about what people fear. Change is always difficult; managing change is one of the most difficult things that we have to do as politicians, as I remember well from my time as a councillor. People are afraid of change, and the most important thing that we need to do as political leaders is respond to and communicate on people’s fears about change.

The debate has to be evidence-based, and there are some legitimate concerns, as we have already heard. For example, disabled people worry about their mobility. In most cases, proper consultation, comprehensive exemptions and more accessible transport options are solutions that widely dispel those fears. LTNs themselves must be fully accessible, with dropped kerbs and no street clutter, otherwise disabled people feel penalised for driving without access to alternatives. As I have already said, whenever there are concerns, people can write to me, and usually those fears are dispelled once they fully understand how the schemes are implemented.

LTNs have clear benefits: they improve air quality, increase the number of journeys made by walking and cycling, and show reductions in street crime. A study found that after three years, street crime decreased by 18%, with an even larger reduction found for violent crimes, and the most significant reduction for sexual assaults. One study found a 50% reduction in road casualties within LTNs with no increase on neighbouring roads. I know the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg) is going to speak because what is being done in Bath city centre will affect neighbourhoods in his constituency. People fear the possible result in neighbouring wards or boundary streets, but clear evidence from the surveys shows that there is no such result. If there is evidence of it, of course we need to look at that.

Early findings indicate that LTNs make neighbourhoods a lot safer after they have been introduced. Air pollution is an invisible killer. A claim often made by opponents of LTNs is that emissions increase outside the designated LTN, but there is little evidence to suggest that that is the case. Researchers at Imperial College London found that NO₂ declined by 5.7% within liveable neighbourhoods, and 8.9% on boundary roads. The Government’s own report acknowledges:

“By reducing traffic and emissions, LTNs can contribute to a cleaner, safer environment”.

Improvements to air quality, coupled with increases in active travel, contribute to healthier lifestyles, with long-term benefits through reducing demand on the NHS.

It is unfortunate that an unhelpful argument has broken out between central Government and local authorities. Local authorities want to work with Government to reduce emissions and make our roads safer, but this Government are intent on reducing councils’ abilities to do so. The right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) said that councils should consult more widely, and I agree with that. It is the best way of increasing democracy and allowing people to be part of the decisions made in their neighbourhoods. However, councils do not have the money or resources to do that, so the mandatory requirement is very limited, and although money is being put towards wider consultation, councils are being hampered. I absolutely agree that councils must consult more widely in order to include a wider group of people, but they also need the money to do so, which they currently do not have.

That consultation would be great for democracy, except that we then have to think about how widely we consult. Is it the whole of the city? Is it the whole of the city and North East Somerset? Should it go beyond North East Somerset? Councils often end up consulting just the neighbours who are directly affected. As I have said, I am sad that this issue has ended up in debate, when we could have had an agreement across our communities, local government and central Government.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Guy Opperman)]

I will speak at greater length later, but the main thrust of the petition is to seek a review. That is what the Government have done, and that is what we are debating today. The debate is about a review of LTNs, and she is characterising it as a “them or us” situation. With respect, I am not sure that is a fair approximation of the review sought by the petitioners, which is exactly what the Government have provided.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Absolutely; I agree. It is meant to be about a review, but I find the argument is often skewed towards the people who simply object. I am happy to listen to what the Government have to say in response and to what the review process is producing. In my constituency of Bath, we are in the middle of a big discussion about LTNs and their principles, and I speak as a constituency MP.

Implementing LTNs must be bottom up and not top down. Councils must work closely with residents when they intend to implement LTNs. I look forward to the wider discussion, but, as I said, there are many proven benefits to the principles of LTNs, and I hope those principles are not neglected in the Government’s review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady says that, but the self-same council that is keen on these low-traffic neighbourhoods has cut the number of buses in my constituency. It has kept most of them in Bath, but the ones in the rural areas it has cut like Billy-o.

[Wera Hobhouse]

It was the West of England Combined Authority Mayor who cut the number of buses in Bath, and my councillors have made many representations about that. Traffic has been one of the biggest issues ever since I turned up in Bath over 10 years ago, and traffic has doubled in the past 15 years. How does the right hon. Gentleman propose that we deal with that?

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am glad the hon. Lady asked me that question because, before the Lib Dems took charge of the Bath and North East Somerset Council, I was working with the previous council on the Bath bypass. That would have joined the A36 and the A46 and been the most sensible thing to do, but in accordance with this whole LTN, anti-motorist approach, as soon as the Lib Dems got in, they did not want the bypass. Why? Because they hate the motorist. They do not like people taking charge of their own lives; they think they know best and they want to tell people what to do. That is why this approach is so bad.

I encourage my hon. Friend the Minister to take away the funding from the schemes, to apply the rules and guidance that came out, I think, on 17 March, to make them into firm law and to implement them on the schemes that are already in place. We should be on the side of freedom and of liberty, of people going about the lives that they choose to lead, rather than thinking that we know best.

The thing that has reduced pollution has been not LTNs, but improvements in the internal combustion engine and, most crucially, the move away from diesel engines. Bear in mind, it was not that long ago that the know-all Government were telling people it was such a good thing to have diesel engines. People were pushed into having them and the percentage of diesel engines in this country shot up. Why? Because the Government of the day wanted to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and ignored the emissions from particulates and oxides of nitrogen, and that led to a decline in the air quality where cars were, which is being improved now, as people have gone back to petrol engines or diesel engines have been improved.

That is the way to do things, to maintain liberty, freedom and choice, and to recognise that the overwhelming majority of journeys are taken by car and that the free flow of traffic is essential to our economy. The Government made a decision in the emergency of the pandemic to do something that seemed to be a solution at the time. Many decisions were taken during the pandemic that, with hindsight, turned out to be wrong. This is one of them. It is time to reverse it. It is time to back freedom and the motorist.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Harris.

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) on her excellent introduction to the debate. I welcome the opportunity to contribute to a review of low-traffic neighbourhoods, but I certainly hope that they are not stopped, as the right hon. Members for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg) have suggested they should be.

In my constituency, measures to create what we might now call low-traffic neighbourhoods have been in place for decades. On Chiswick Lane, a barrier that keeps traffic from cutting through from Chiswick High Road to the A4 via Airedale Avenue, Netheravon Road and Beverley Road has been there for more than 40 years. Worple Road in Isleworth is closed to through traffic trying to take a shortcut from the A316 over to Old Isleworth. Pears Road in Hounslow used to be a back road avoiding Hounslow High Street and Hanworth Road. Chiswick Common Road has long since been cut off as a vehicle route from Chiswick High Road to Turnham Green Terrace. Those have been in place for a long time. They use physical barriers such as bollards and planters, and no one—no one—has contacted me or their local councillors demanding their removal. Furthermore, if those barriers were to be removed, there would be many objections.

Such measures to prevent rat-running were implemented because there was an issue for residents on those roads. The number of drivers avoiding traffic jams on main roads by using residential side roads grew over the past 10 or so years, in particular, following the mass use of real-time sat-navs.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the hon. Lady agree that a council does not pick issues out of thin air, but responds to residents writing to the council in large numbers to say that they want change? The council does not just decide to do something to annoy people.

[Ruth Cadbury]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. My experience is with Hounslow. I cannot say whether each local authority implemented change that was needed—or whether they plucked ideas out of thin air in 2020—but that is certainly the case in Hounslow.

The nightmare for residents who live on roads that are rat runs, particularly since the mass use of sat-navs, is that it varies; at some times of the day there is speeding, and at others there are continuous traffic jams, with vehicles spewing fumes and preventing residents from driving into or out of their own road. That environment takes away the freedom of children and older people to feel safe walking around their neighbourhood, particularly at junctions and crossroads. National figures show that more people cycle where they feel safe. Many of us own bikes but are not brave enough to cycle when roads are busy.

All the low-traffic neighbourhood measures that were implemented in Hounslow in 2020 were introduced in neighbourhoods or on roads where residents had long been angry about the impact of rat-running and had been calling on their councillors—I was one of them—for action for years. The measures introduced by the Government in 2020, during covid, which are probably the one thing I can compliment former Prime Minister Boris Johnson on, provided regulatory change and the funding to make implementation by local authorities happen quickly.

Local authorities, including Hounslow, used temporary measures to try out what worked. Some roads are now low-traffic neighbourhoods as a result of that work, including the whole south Chiswick area, which I will come to shortly; Green Dragon Lane, a road with almost all social rent housing where only a minority of people have use of a private vehicle; Occupation Lane in Brentford, at the top end of a council estate; and the Teesdales near West Middlesex University Hospital, where there were continuous battles between drivers trying to pass each other on a narrow road with resident parking.

Since they were implemented on those roads and others in Hounslow, the LTN measures have been achieving exactly what residents had asked of the council. They are stopping through traffic using the road as a shortcut while allowing residents to pass freely. Residents can drive into and out of their roads, and walk to and from their homes safely, especially when crossing and at corners. No longer are there long traffic jams with vehicles spewing out fumes and drivers getting angry when trying to pass.

Some of the schemes were revised. One was tried that removed through traffic from Turnham Green Terrace in Chiswick, a popular shopping street with very narrow pavements. The idea was to make it more business friendly, but local councillors asked for it to be removed, so it was. The schemes can be modified. Another popular shopping street, Devonshire Road, was closed completely. Concerns were expressed by the shop owners, but not by the restaurant and bar owners, so Devonshire Road is now open to through traffic during the day so that people can access the shops, but in the evening it reverts to a traffic-free road with tables and chairs outside on the carriageway, which benefits the restaurants and bars.

Physical barriers are not the only tool. In many cases there are often far better tools to create a low-traffic neighbourhood. Hounslow has made extensive use of camera technology and enforcement so that any vehicle can enter and leave a neighbourhood or road whichever way suits its driver, so long as it enters and leaves by the same way it came in, or arrives, stays and then leaves later.

I want briefly to address school streets, which are a subset of liveable neighbourhoods. There have been over 30 in Hounslow, and headteachers have told me of their benefits. They have cut out a lot of the conflict between the tiny minority of parents who insist on driving their children to school and the much larger number of parents who walk their children to school and get very angry at the behaviour of some selfish drivers. Those drivers are no longer able have close access to the school. One headteacher told me that an awful lot of families are now walking to and from school rather than making a trip of a couple of hundred yards in a vehicle every day.

Hounslow’s largest low-traffic neighbourhood started life before covid and was known as the south Chiswick liveable neighbourhood. Rat-running drivers seeking to avoid the Hogarth roundabout when travelling from the A3 or A316 to head west on the M4 or A4, or travelling either way between Chiswick bridge and Kew bridge parallel to the River Thames, had long been an issue. Thousands of vehicles a day were travelling straight through that neighbourhood without stopping, and most of them were long-distance; they were not local Chiswick vehicles.

In 2019, after full consultation, residents supported in principle the implementation of the liveable neighbourhood for south Chiswick. It was actually implemented in 2020 using the covid emergency measures, because funding had not been available prior to that. The impact has been significant: a 50% drop in through traffic, more people walking and cycling, and a drop in average vehicle speeds. On the boundary roads, there were not greater traffic jams and higher volumes, but a reduction in traffic of between 2.8% and 9.3%, despite the closure of Hammersmith bridge. That suggests that low-traffic neighbourhoods encourage a modal shift away from private vehicle use and towards public transport, walking and cycling.

The most remarkable impact we have seen in Chiswick is the loss of a council seat in the 2022 elections by the party that campaigned vigorously against the low-traffic neighbourhood that had been implemented two years earlier. For the first time in 48 years, a Labour councillor was elected to represent the Chiswick Riverside ward—hardly evidence that local people hate the LTN.

Following concerns raised locally, Hounslow has made improvements to the LTN scheme, and could perhaps make some more. I would like to see improved signage warning drivers that they are entering an LTN. Another suggestion is the use of a “one strike and then you’re fined” rule to warn people not to drive through the area again. I have been fined for not being able to see a sign in an area I did not know very well. I was a bit annoyed with myself. It was a school street and I was driving through at the very end of the school street restrictions. That annoys people, and does not help their ability to support what I believe overall are very good policies.

There is no doubt that restricting through traffic in an area achieves its purpose if it is done well and there is a need, with less pollution directly outside people’s homes, safer roads and easy access for residents. There is national evidence that there is more walking and cycling in quiet areas, and that more walking and cycling in retail areas—Walthamstow town in Waltham Forest being the best example—has strong economic benefits for local businesses and high streets. We know the benefits to tourism areas of easy, safe, segregated cycling infrastructure or quiet areas to cycle. I do not know how many other people look for cycling opportunities when they are going on holiday, but good cycling measures are a draw to tourists.

Low-traffic neighbourhoods, if they are implemented where they are needed, are properly consulted on and use clear signage and appropriate technology—camera enforcement or bollards and planters, as appropriate—can work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

With great respect, I am going to push back slightly because, clearly, one of the key purposes of this review, which I am going to set out in quite a lot of detail, is an assessment of issues in relation to what are called exemptions and exceptions. Included as part of that are vehicles exempted from restriction—generally indicated on the traffic signs; those can include permit holders, buses, taxis and disabled badge holders. There is a detailed section on exactly that point, and there are further sections about how implementation should take place for that. More particularly, we are, on an ongoing basis, engaging with the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee—or DPTAC—via the Local Government Association and individual local-government organisations. With respect, I will return to that in a little more detail later.

Low-traffic neighbourhoods clearly expanded during the early stages of the covid-19 pandemic. The rapid roll-out led to concerns that they were being imposed, and that communities had not been fully involved in their development. There were also concerns that the roll-out did not properly take into account the needs of many organisations, including disabled people, and representations were made in a whole host of ways, leading up to the actual review itself.

We have to accept that low-traffic neighbourhoods can work where they are well designed and where there is, crucially, local support for them. But they can also do harm where they are poorly thought through and introduced with insufficient public engagement and support.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Will the Minister give way?

[Guy Opperman]

I am not going to give way to the hon. Lady yet; I want to try to make some progress. I will, of course, let her come in at a later stage.

The Government have been clear that effective traffic management is not about dictating travel choices, but about enabling more choice in how people make their journeys. Local traffic measures must work for residents, businesses and emergency services. We can bandy about examples of successes and failures—there is no doubt whatever that there have been both—but it is clear that some communities have been upset and antagonised by low-traffic neighbourhoods. That is particularly true in London, and one could give examples from Tower Hamlets and, I believe, Ealing and Streatham. Certainly, as a cyclist in London, I have experienced and seen some, and I did a further visit to the Wandsworth Bridge Road last week. Some of those communities have introduced low-traffic neighbourhoods and then abandoned them.

Similarly, where I live in the north-east, a low-traffic neighbourhood was introduced in Jesmond. It has subsequently been abandoned, in circumstances where there has clearly been an impact on the local community, which was upset about how it was implemented, and a massive effect on businesses. There must be due consideration of the impact on local communities, which we all like to represent in our constituencies, and of the consequences of channelling all traffic, for example, on to one major road, while massively reducing traffic on side roads and impacting on parking. Businesses will unquestionably suffer as a result of a downturn in the local economy, and they have done so.

[Guy Opperman]

I will not give way yet, so let me make some progress. We need to ensure that changes to local roads properly take account of communities’ views and are implemented in a way that does not fundamentally dictate how people should travel.

I want to keep returning to the petitioners, because they are the people we are addressing today. The first petition asks that the Government carry out an independent review of LTNs. After the initial reply was sent in April last year, the Prime Minister announced in July that he was commissioning just such a review. He also set out—a fair point has been made—the plan for drivers, and a fundamental effort was made to look at all aspects of how transport was being undertaken.

The review of LTNs commenced in September last year, and set out to ensure that schemes work for residents, businesses and emergency services, the last of which have not, with respect, been mentioned as much as I thought they would be in the debate. This additional project was separate from the work already under way to review schemes funded through the second tranche of active travel funding, including a deep dive into the impact of segregated cycle lanes and low-traffic neighbourhoods. It included a literature review, a survey of local authorities in England, an in-depth study of four schemes, and interviews with key stakeholder groups.

The LTN review completed in January this year and concluded that there are some significant key issues with the implementation of LTN schemes in England. That was based on externally commissioned, independent research and analysis carried out by an independent contractor. I will not go into the details of the particular points that can be found upon reading. There has not been much reference today to the document of 17 March, but I strongly urge all colleagues to read it in detail. However, I have a little time, so I will set out the opening couple of paragraphs:

“Last year, the Department for Transport commissioned a review of low traffic neighbourhoods… The research shows that, while they can work, in the right place, and, crucially, where they are supported, too often local people don’t know enough about them and haven’t been able to have a say. Increasingly and frustratingly, we see larger and larger low traffic schemes being proposed by some councils despite concerted opposition by local residents and by local businesses, and in some cases”

—as I have outlined—

“being removed again. This guidance makes it clear that should not happen.

It also sets out that, even if they are introduced, councils should continue to regularly review low traffic neighbourhoods, ensuring they keep meeting their objectives, aren’t adversely affecting other areas, and are locally supported. This guidance makes clear our expectations, and…will carefully consider how councils follow it, alongside other appropriate factors, when looking at funding decisions.”

I do not propose to read out a substantial review document, but it goes on to say:

“Ultimately government can make changes to the legal framework if advice is overlooked—although working cooperatively with local councils is by far preferred. We need a fair approach, where local support is paramount, and this guidance sets out how that can be achieved.”

[Wera Hobhouse]

I do not think anybody in this room would disagree with anything the Minister has read out, because it is about the engagement that local councils have. For that reason, does he not agree that Bath and North East Somerset Council is taking exactly the right approach? It is having a trial period of LTNs, with proper success criteria that can be evidenced. If an LTN does not work against the success criteria, it will be removed. Is that not the right approach?

[Guy Opperman]

I do not propose to sit in judgment on an individual local authority’s approach in trying to persuade local communities, which is the purpose of this process, that there should be restrictions on one cohort and that there might be difficulties for other cohorts—I include bus travel, emergency services and problems for the disabled—and to make an assessment of whether that individual local authority is doing a good or a bad thing. What I will say, however, is that, self-evidently, the things we have talked about are not happening up and down the country at present; that is patently clear. We can say that very clearly because a large number of local authorities are abandoning their LTNs.