A recent meeting of Dulwich residents laid bare the unresolved tensions surrounding the Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) covering Dulwich Village junction.
The hour and a half long meeting saw countless questions fielded by Dulwich Village Cllrs Richard Leeming and Margy Newens – almost all of which concerned the LTN.
Much of the furore surrounding the LTN can be traced back to the manner in which it was introduced. Some residents at the time felt the council’s approach was underhand – the scheme was implemented during lockdown, when people were shut up indoors.
The council ran a consultation a year later which found two thirds of respondents wanted the scheme to be scrapped, but decided to push ahead with it anyway.
This was their right – consultations are not referendums, and the council is not legally obliged to defer to the outcomes. The council explicitly backs traffic management schemes which it views as essential to its environmental aims.
The latest development in the saga is a controlled parking zone (CPZ) installed in January, which local businesses claim has hurt trade because people can’t park outside their shops.
If there was any doubt about the opinion slant of meeting attendees, it was expressed in the rapturous applause that followed bookshop owner Hazel Broadfoot’s damning indictment of the CPZ – and the icy reception given to Cllrs Leeming and Newens.
It is not the case that everyone is opposed to LTNs – plenty of people like them, and want to see them retained. When an LTN scheme in Tower Hamlets was scrapped last year, residents crowdfunded a legal challenge to get it reinstated.
But the raw anger and frustration expressed by residents during the meeting, five years on from its initial installation, speaks to not only the strength of feeling stirred by the LTN, but also to the vital importance in politics of bringing people with you.
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Cllr Leeming laid out in no uncertain terms that “the Dulwich Village LTN will not be lifted while this Labour administration is in power”, with Cllr Newens later expressing her hope that residents and councillors might be able to come together and move forward.
But it is hard to see the prospects of a rapprochement unless both sides are willing to cede some ground. Residents made several suggestions during the meeting, including bringing in timed restrictions at the junction instead of a 24/7 closure and lifting restrictions during school holidays.
The Chair later acknowledged the gathering had failed to yield a “meeting of minds”. Going forward, the council should explore ways it can work with local residents to address some of their concerns – only then might we see a system that works for everyone.
