Our response to the consultation on the new low emission zone

Soon after his election the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, called for new proposals to urgently help tackle London’s lethal air pollution. The Mayor has already introduced the T-Charge in central London, bought forward the start date of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) for central London to 8 April 2019 and announced a series of measures to clean up London’s bus fleet.

TfL are now consulting on detailed proposals for two further initiatives to improve London’s air. These involve:

Tightening the standards of the existing London-wide Low Emission Zone from 2020, which affects heavy vehicles – buses, coaches and HGVs and other heavy specialist vehicles
Expanding the ULEZ for light vehicles (cars, vans and motorcycles) from central London to inner London up to, but not including the North and South Circular roads in 2021 so that all vehicles in this area are subject to emissions standards

The full proposals can be found here: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/environment/air-quality-consultation-phase-3b/#our proposals

In Thurlow Park, they involve a new low emissions zone extending up to but not including the South Circular.

As your local Labour councillors, we have responded to the consultation calling on the zone to be wider, covering all of London rather than stopping at the South Circular.

Air quality is a very important
issue for us and our residents. Thurlow Park ward straddles the South Circular
and has a number of other strategically important roads that experience heave
traffic, including Norwood Road and Lancaster Avenue.

These roads, and the
streets leading off them, experience high volumes of cars, buses, lorries and
vans. As a consequence, the air that residents living, working, walking and
cycling in our ward, and especially on these roads, is damaging their lungs.

We are therefore
very supportive of actions which TfL and the Mayor can take to tackle air
pollution and welcome a large Ultra Low Emissions Zone. We agree with proposals
that there should be tougher emissions standards, particularly given this will especially
impact the heavy vehicles that we experience disproportionately.

We also support
the expansion of the existing Low Emission Zone. However, we are very
disappointed that it is being proposed to go only as far as the south circular.
As shown by this map displaying data from the London Air website compiled by
Kings College London, the South Circular is the worst road in our
neighbourhood. It’s a residential road, and in just Thurlow Park goes past two
schools and very near to two more.

On any given day,
these homes and schools have around 15,000 vehicles driving east and a further
12,000 vehicles travelling west past their front doors, according to data
collected by TfL which we have published here: https://thurlowparklabour.org/post/166566971597/progress-made-in-our-campaign-for-a-safer-south

Other pollution
hotspots would be missed off the new zone too – in our ward, Norwood Road sees
higher traffic and pollution, as do Robson Road, Rosendale Road, Lancaster
Avenue and Croxted Road, for example, thanks to buses, delivery vehicles and
other traffic.

The current
proposals, up to and not including the South Circular, fail to take action on
the road in the greatest need of action and does nothing to tackle the
pollution hotspots south of this boundary. They create a situation which sees
only half of our residents breathing cleaner air, while some of the worst
affected areas see no change in regulation. We are also concerned that the new
zone will push the most pollution traffic south as drivers of vehicles affected
look for alternative routes that avoid the charge. We don’t want to see the
southern half of the ward become a rat run for London’s most polluting traffic.

By extending the
zone to cover the whole city, this scenario can be avoided. We would
therefore like to see the new zone expanded to cover the whole of London,
including the South Circular.

Meet Sadiq’s new deputy mayor for the environment

Sadiq Khan has appointed Shirley Rodrigues to be the Deputy Mayor for Envrionment. She has previously worked in senior environmental policy roles, helping to implement the London Low Emission Zone and developing programmes to retrofit the capital’s buildings.

Ms Rodrigues has said that her priority is to make London one of the world’s most environmentally friendly cities, and is keen to tackle air pollution. Around 9,500 Londoners die from long term exposure to air pollution every year, and Sadiq Khan has said that tackling this is one of the biggest health emergencies facing the capital. Ms Rodrigues will be driving forward ambitious plans for a T-Charge for the most polluting vehicles, expanding the Ultra-Low Emission Zone and creating green bus zones.

Raising Quietways concerns with Andrew Gilligan

Cllr Anna Birley recently met with Andrew Gilligan to raise the questions and concerns that many of you have sent us regarding Quietways.

We asked –

Governance and decision making
Timings – can these be more flexible or are they politically driven
Choice of route – why was there no consultation and was it influenced unfairly by the Dulwich Estate?
Why has engagement been so poor?
Interventions – what is on and off the table?
Aspirations for the programme – it appears like a lot of money will be spent on a small increase in cycling, so how will success be measured?
What happens if changes to Rosendale Road are insufficient to deal with priorities highlighted by residents – speeding and safety?

Anna’s feedback is –

“Andrew said he agrees that the programme has not gone as well as intended and acknowledged residents’ concerns about poor engagement. While it may not be of comfort to Thurlow Park residents, I believe that by learning from our experience the delivery of other Quietway routes in the future will be much better.

“He assured me that the Dulwich Estate did not exert undue influence and that a route through Dulwich Village had its own challenges when it reached some difficult junctions at the South Circular. I expressed our disappointment that there had been no consultation about this at the time.

“I wasn’t very satisfied with his reply to my questions about a lot of money being spent to make minor changes – while I’m pleased to see investment in Rosendale Road, it has been pointed out by residents that a 10-20% increase in cycling isn’t in practice very many additional cyclists on the route. He said that in the context of significant TfL budgets being spent on large projects like Tulse Hill, this was not a big sum.

“He suggested that we could look at phasing the changes – we could make very minor changes now as phase one, and plan to make more significant ones later if there is demand for this locally. Currently this is not the plan, and anything we want to do must be done in the current scheme, but I would be interested in residents’ feedback on whether we should be pushing for anything additional as a phase two.

“I explained that the priorities of many local residents were to reduce speeding, make the road safer and tackle ratrunning traffic on neighbouring roads like Dalmore and Eastmearn. He is committed to investing in a route rather than a group of trees so any changes to neighbouring roads would need to demonstrate why they make the route safer. With the issues that residents have raised about the Dalmore and Eastmearn, we perhaps need to focus on why ratrunning traffic makes the Eastmearn junction with Rosendale Road, by the shops, so dangerous. That in turn will hopefully mean we can look at including Dalmore, providing a plan is put on the table that residents like.

“Regarding speeding, I shared the desire for better speed cameras and proper enforcement. He didn’t give the impression that this could be included in the Quietways funding but I have followed up by email to underline the strength of feeling held by many that this is key to tackling speeding.”

Many thanks to Val Shawcross, Assembly Member for Lambeth and Southwark, who organised and facilitated the meeting.