Low Traffic Neighbourhoods
Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Guy Opperman(6 months ago)
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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.
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.
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.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Guy Opperman(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)
The answer is yes. We want universal credit to provide support to claimants even where they have suffered bereavement of a child. Where a bereavement happens, we seek to ensure that the child element, disabled child element, childcare, carer element and housing element with the run-on provisions will all continue, notwithstanding the loss.
Wera Hobhouse
I am not entirely certain whether the Minister just announced a change in what the Government are doing, but may I press him on the issue affecting my constituents? The loss of these benefits places a heavy financial strain on parents who are already suffering from overwhelming grief. One of my constituents knows this. I have asked the Minister and his predecessor on several occasions for a meeting to see how to mitigate that. If he has just announced a change, I would be happy if he could explain what has now changed. Will he please meet me to explain what the changes are?
Guy Opperman
The hon. Lady may not know, but I lost twin boys and fully understand the difficulties her constituent faces in terms of bereavement. It is clearly the case that there are the run-on provisions, but I would happy to sit down with her to explain the run-on provisions and the extent to which there is ongoing support for the bereaved.