Tower Hamlets residents, including campaigners, GPs and schools, have expressed their dismay at a decision by the council to remove almost the entirety of ‘Liveable Streets’ schemes in the borough.
Two public consultations have shown strong local support for keeping the streets in Bethnal Green and Brick lane as they are. The results of the most recent consultation from February 2023, published last week, showed that 58% of local residents preferred the status quo, and over 75% of all respondents favoured keeping the current schemes.
Residents were offered two options in the consultation – Option 1 to reverse the low traffic neighbourhoods or Option 2 to keep them.
The street layouts were installed just two years ago at a cost of over £2 million. Today’s decision will cost the council at least a further £2.5m and is not currently budgeted for. Bart’s Hospital, the Metropolitan Police, Transport for London, local schools, local GPs and 82% of businesses have all supported ‘Option 2’ or keeping the schemes as they are, given the improvements to health and safety and reductions in anti-social behaviour.
Jane Harris, a campaigner with Save Our Safer Streets, who last year presented a petition signed by 3094 residents calling on the council to keep the layouts; requested to speak at this evening’s Cabinet meeting but was rejected. She said: “We are utterly dismayed by the Mayor’s reckless and dangerous decision today. He has shown absolute contempt for the health of children and older people in the borough. Every time they’ve asked local residents what we want, we’ve said the same thing: keep and improve the new layouts.
“And now the council has decided to ignore what the majority of residents want and get rid of nearly all the improvements. This is totally undemocratic and unacceptable. It will take us back to the bad old days of unsafe roads, polluted air and really problematic anti-social behaviour in areas like Arnold Circus and Middleton Green. And he’s offering us nothing at all to mitigate any of these issues.
“We’re also very concerned about the report they based the decision on. We noticed it leaves out a huge amount of the evidence we’ve seen in favour of the schemes, including objections from the Met Police and Transport for London, and it misrepresents the views of local businesses.
Dr Emma Radcliffe, a GP and Vice Chair of the Tower Hamlets Local Medical Council, is one of 65 health professionals who have written to the mayor urging him to preserve the schemes and their associated health benefits. She said: “Keeping the schemes is absolutely the best thing for public health in the borough. The council’s data shows that air quality is improving everywhere in Tower Hamlets, but pollution is still a big threat to our health. We also know that active travel is associated with better physical and mental health, as well as lower environmental impact.
“In a borough with the fifth worst air quality in London as well as higher rates of childhood obesity and early death from stroke and heart disease, we need to do everything possible to reduce dependency on cars and get people walking and cycling. That’s why my colleagues and I called on the mayor to retain the schemes.”
Simon Ramsay is the head of Oaklands School on Old Bethnal Green Road, in the middle of one of the low traffic neighbourhoods. He said: “I’m absolutely appalled by this decision. The current street layouts have made our 1,000 students so much safer as they come and go and travel between our buildings: now they’ll be at risk again. The thought of thousands of extra cars, vans and HGVs chugging past our school, spewing pollution and endangering our young people, is truly awful.
“The huge disruption and noise required to reverse the schemes, not to mention the incredible waste of public money here is truly galling. The mayor recently paused a desperately needed investment programme for our school, and we will have to watch as he ploughs money into ripping up the infrastructure around our school that made it a better place to work and study.
“We see first-hand the impact of the housing and cost-of-living crises on our community, and we’re about to see rubbish piling up due to strikes. But the Mayor wants to spend at least £2.5m pulling out a scheme that only recently cost millions of taxpayers’ pounds to put in.”
Rob Andari from Save Our Safer Streets said: “All along we’ve asked the mayor to listen to everyone who is affected by our street design. We want the council to understand any specific problems with the scheme and spend money on fixing them, not wasting over £2.5 m ripping out the whole design.
“This is not the end. We know we have public support for our cause and the overwhelming evidence too. With the advice of our lawyers, we will monitor the legality of what the council has done. Our Crowd Justice page is open for donations so we are in a position to act as necessary to protect our safer streets.”
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