‘We’re being pushed to outskirts of our borough’ – residents slam LTNs in calls for ‘key roads’ to be reopened
Hackney residents have expressed doubt over the effectiveness of LTNs. Photograph: LDRS
Hackney residents have called for the reopening of “key roads” amid Labour rifts over the rollout of low traffic zones and split opinions over whether they provide any benefit.
More than 1,500 people have now signed an e-petition lambasting Hackney Council for following “urban theory and not real life” in its shutting, restricting or diverting the borough’s roads through the rollout of low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) with “little input” from residents. The council claims they have provided clear benefits, but opponents point to environmental data that suggests they’ve not improved air quality.
The petition states: “We wake up, and another road is closed. We’re no longer driving through Hackney — we’re being pushed to the outskirts of our own borough.
“The result? Ten-minute journeys taking 30+ minutes, delays in reaching loved ones, essential services [..] disruption for parents, carers, elderly and disabled residents. Local businesses are struggling [and] emergency services and workers are being held back.”
LTNs were introduced in Hackney in 2020. Photograph: LDRS
The campaigners say they want cleaner air and less pollution, but argued that funnelling traffic into smaller roads was not a solution but a recipe for “chaos”.
Hackney has 19 LTNs in total, covering half of its total area and making it the London borough with the most traffic restrictions of this kind. Since the Labour-run administration first introduced these zones in 2020 to create a “cleaner, greener” borough, more than two-thirds (70%) of the borough’s roads have become part of LTNs.
The petition has crossed the threshold of 750 signatories needed for it to be debated at a full council meeting, but it also emerges as the council has published the latest data on air quality in Hackney. While harmful emissions like nitrogen oxides had steadily fallen across the borough since 2017, statistics show the rate of decline had not fallen any faster since 2020 – when LTNs were first introduced.
Pollution levels had also remained “stubborn,” especially at key junctions such as Pembury Circus, though the council expects this to fall “dramatically” once roadworks are completed. Particulate matter in the atmosphere also saw a spike in 2023 before falling back below target.
The data prompted Labour councillor Anna Lynch to voice her “lack of confidence” around LTNs, which “hadn’t really made much of a dent in air quality.” She appealed to the council to monitor data so they could know what the overall impact traffic diversions were having on people’s health.
The Homerton councillor said residents in her ward, “particularly areas with lots of social housing”, were suffering from a concentration of emissions due to “incredible” numbers of cars idling. Cllr Lynch described her own recent “dreadful experience” trying to get her relative to Homerton Hospital through an existing low traffic zone.
Her Labour colleague Ian Rathbone added that the policies had upset many residents, who overall felt the benefits were not being explained to them, and even offered officers advice on how to communicate: “You have to explain [these] again and again, every single day,” he said.
Climate chief Cllr Sarah Young said the council was ‘really conscious’ about the influx of traffic onto main roads. Photograph: North London Waste Authority
The borough’s climate chief Cllr Sarah Young said the council’s research showed LTNs were “absolutely not” providing unequal benefits in “leafier and more wealthy areas.”
She added the council was “really conscious” about tackling the influx of traffic onto main roads, which was its overarching policy. Council officer Tom Richardson added that the council’s messaging around the positives of LTNs were “not always landing with everybody.”
In April, the council acknowledged it had so far failed to sufficiently reduce persistent and stubborn air pollution and transport emissions, and that main roads were still “dominated” by motor traffic. The admission came as the council invited the public to share its input on how to “humanise” Hackney’s streets and try to “build on the rapid expansion of LTNs.”
In September, the council published the results of this survey which found the majority (57%) of residents who took part had a negative view on the low-traffic zones.
The survey findings came weeks after it emerged that Transport for London had suppressed a study which cast significant doubt on LTNs reducing car journeys as proponents have often claimed. The report did however confirm a positive correlation between low-traffic zones and cycle usage across London.
When asked for comment by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), Cllr Young said: “We’ve seen clear evidence that LTNs are delivering real benefits, traffic is down by an average of 38 per cent inside [the zones] and two per cent on boundary roads, with air pollution falling at most of our monitoring sites. Residents also tell us they’re walking and cycling more.”
She added that the council was “always interested in the full range of data and research on transport schemes” and said the council would continue to listen to residents, carefully monitor data and draw on all available research to make sure the schemes “work for everyone.”
Ridiculous article. First of all, it’s not “Hackney residents” but “Hackney (or surrounding borough) drivers.” The majority of households in Hackney do not own cars and therefore the LTNs are only a positive for them, quieter calmer streets they can get around by other means. I bet a large percentage of those 1500 signatures are taxi drivers from Essex.
“The result? Ten-minute journeys taking 30+ residents.” Perhaps consider not driving TEN MINUTE journeys? You are the problem if you do this. You cause traffic and air pollution. You have no right to complain about either of those things when they are your fault.
“The campaigners say they want cleaner air and less pollution, but argued that funnelling traffic into smaller roads was not a solution but a recipe for “chaos”.” They should stop driving. But I’m all ears about what their “solutions” are. They won’t have anything. The only way to reduce air pollution is to reduce cars, and the only way to do that is to make alternatives better (which LTNs do) and make driving worse (again, which they do). And main roads are not “smaller” roads.
“While harmful emissions like nitrogen oxides had steadily fallen across the borough since 2017, statistics show the rate of decline had not fallen any faster since 2020 – when LTNs were first introduced.” In other words air quality has improved since 2020. This is the evidence they’ve got? Pathetic. It’s actually good air quality is improving considering how many more petrol-guzzling SUVs are on the streets.
“The Homerton councillor said residents in her ward, “particularly areas with lots of social housing”, were suffering from a concentration of emissions due to “incredible” numbers of cars idling. ” Well perhaps the Council could use some of its traffic wardens to fine people for this, instead of just getting rid of schemes that are solutions, not problems.
“In September, the council published the results of this survey which found the majority (57%) of residents who took part had a negative view on the low-traffic zones.” That means nothing when those against are going to be more motivated to fill them in. They are not unbiased samples. Any one with half a brain can see this.
Is there a counter-petition you could cover? I would love more LTNs and more disincentives to people driving and walking, cycling, or using public transport instead. 🙂
We are Hackney residents, live in the LTN, and on a designated Quietway for cyclists. We once struggled to cross our residential road for large lorry’s and police car chases, but these have been replaced by many bikes and the Lime bikes. They are better for the environment and less likely to kill if hit by one, but the ongoing efforts by Hackney to close more roads in favour of more cycle routes is nonsensical and creates more problems from problems which do not exist.
As a family with school aged children we cycle everywhere; to work, to school, to the shops, to visit friends etc. Cycling with less cars is really nice, and I do not miss the car chases or blue lights flying down our road but these have gone somewhere and it’s not here. One also cannot avoid thinking about how this has impacted on crime, something that Hackney residents speak about daily. There has been an increase in crime committed on bike or because of bikes – masked men stealing bikes, angle grinders operating at 1am, phones snatched out of pedestrians hands, and it happens all over the neighbourhood. The police cannot keep up and us residents are instead the watchful, suspecting, but unchallenging eyes of the community.
We are currently being consulted on a proposal to extend a cycling route along Queensbridge Road and the closure of more roads in the streets off of that road. The reason given is to reduce incidents with cyclists and motorists, however aa LTNs have reduced cars on the LTN streets, it has increased cyclists including many that should not cycle!
There are numerous accounts of residents being caught out crossing the road on a green signal only to find themselves dodging bikes speeding passed with some belief they have the right of way, or long suffering residents waking to find scratches and broken bits on parked cars caused by e-bikes transporting Hackneys vibrant nighttime economy around. Due to the LTN’s Ubers do not come into the area and so folk that have had too much to drink hop on an e-bike and wobble through the quiet streets. I have picked up several people on the quiet side streets who have collided with one another or just with themselves after a night out. A general lack of road awareness, disregard for road safety and the Highway Code, is a real issue.
Finally, as a woman living in an LTN, lack of car traffic – although I support it – makes the streets at night empty. There is often no one around to help and the streets feel less safe in that emptiness. I know Hackney have conducted studies into how women feel about safety in the area and I have given feedback that it feels that street crime has increased within the LTN zone. From one problem to another big problem, all of these actions have a knock on effect for someone, somewhere.
I can see the cycling brigade are in full swing in the comments section..
A lot of people not from Hackney have moved here and do not have families and will not stay here long-term and are nothing but a transient population trying to dictate how the rest of us, who actually live, work and are raising families here, should conduct our day to day lives. A lot of these people want to turn Hackney, an inner-city bordering the City, into a village for some reason, and a lot of the staffers in Hackney Council making these changes are not residents of the borough themselves. Talk to any working class resident in an estate somewhere and they will express how upset they are about the changes being implemented with little regard for actual residents’ feelings.
I personally have a large family and have to travel around in my car to do many things (food shops, visiting family, hospital visits, etc), not all of us are single and living in a rented room in a houseshare, and not all of us are wealthy enough to live in an LTN, and I wouldn’t want to anyway, because of the inequality. Just take a walk down Homerton High Street to witness the sheer inequality delivered to residents in Nisbet House, for example, and the surrounding estates, whilst half of Chatsworth Road is completely cut off. Why is that? What is the purpose in not allowing people to travel down a road that is filled with just shops? Hackney Council have this mentality of treating motorists like they’ve “outsmarted” them by cutting off necessary roads. Do you know how convoluted it is parking behind Homerton Hospital for example? Why complicate something that the residents actually need?
Some final questions, why are motorists being penalised? And why has Hackney not introduced other methods of allowing its own RESIDENT motorists (who pay road tax, fuel duty and for overpriced parking permits, etc) some sort of “residential drivers pass” that allows them to drive freely in the borough? Why are the same rules applied across all motorists, non-resident and resident alike? There should be some sort of exemption for residents!
The change cannot come fast enough. I’m voting for anyone who respects that we residents are adults and not infants looking to have our autonomy policed when our day to day is already stressful enough!
It is disappointing to see such a negative article which misses the facts and elevates the evidence-free complaining of a minority.
If you’re going to spotlight the personal stories of people who object then why not also speak to people who’ve seen streets transformed from polluted dangerous car sewers to safe, clean healthy prosocial streets? People who once drove and now cycle their kids to school? Or children who can now travel independently and play outside?
There will always be people who object to any measure which doesn’t prioritise cars but there is a huge amount of actual objective evidence of the impact of LTNs – why not mention some of that?
For example the recent BMJ study which studied 113 LTNs and showed they result in a 35% reduction in all injuries, rising to 37% for death and serious injuries with the LTNs preventing more than 600 road injuries that would have otherwise taken place, including 100 involving death or serious injury.
Or you could’ve quoted the DfT traffic monitoring figures for Homerton High Street. Their automatic counter shows there has been no change in vehicle numbers on the high street since the surrounding LTNs with 21,038 daily vehicles in 2019 and 20,932 in 2024, showing allegations the LTNs have made the high street worse are just rose-tinted spectacles and misinformation. That might have been useful context do you think?
Or perhaps instead of a vague and misleading comment about air quality you could have quoted the Imperial College Study which found concentrations of nitrogen dioxide fell by 5.7% within LTNs and by just under 9% on their boundaries, compared to the control site. Or perhaps the Oxford University study on how they significantly reduced environmental noise without boundary noise impacts?
And then there’s the unfair allegation ‘Transport for London had suppressed a study which cast significant doubt on LTNs reducing car journeys as proponents have often claimed.’.
Did the reporter actually bother to read the study? Well I did. It wasn’t supressed and it didn’t find LTNs don’t reduce car use anyway, it just had to be cancelled because it suffered sample attrition (common to longitudinal studies) which meant it wasn’t able to draw statistically significant conclusions.
The study was designed to study new LTNs which didn’t come forward – in part due to misleading articles such as this one. It stated ‘The lack of sufficient sample size for a longitudinal analysis of LTNs impacts however cannot only be attributed to a slowdown in delivery of new schemes. It is also partly due to sample attrition over time (frequent in longitudinal studies) and the compounding of the effect and lack of new LTNs with a self-selection recruitment method that could not ensure a sufficient number of responses in the intervention areas’. So sadly just not a useful study to draw any conclusions – certainly not a smoking gun.
Usually I expect more from Hackney Citizen than the endless poking of culture wars other papers engage in. Please do better with your journalism.
I am a long time Hackney resident, not a driver or a car owner or an Essex taxi driver. But I am suffering from the pollution and traffic fall out from Hackney’s ill thought out LTN rollout. Others have mentioned East Hackney but it’s a problem all over Hackney – for example in residential roads Riversdale & Mountgrove Road, pollution, noise and traffic has increased exponentially because of the increased traffic and build ups in standing traffic in Blackstock Road and Green Lanes due to LTNs pushing traffic into other roads. The width restrictions cause consistent back-ups and road rage now. There’s no-one testing levels in our roads. No-one monitoring the evidential increased amount of black dust and soot that builds up inside our home and lungs. And it’s also affecting the health and well being of those main route residents with mainly social housing. I don’t mention that to ‘poke a culture war’ – it’s just fact and often those in social housing are less able to have their voices heard above the louder private sector. Plus I know a few residents in LTNs don’t like the fact they have basically become a gated community – like another response above they realise it’s creating an inequality, the problem just goes elsewhere. For the opinion that hardly anyone in Hackney owns a car – our areas roads are filled with residents’ parked cars, there’s no space free at night. It’s unlikely that all Hackney’s car owners live in those roads and if Hackney data is working off resident permit holders, some don’t have permits as they park outside of parking restrictions. Hackney is not an island, it’s part of London and people have to be able to travel safely across boroughs at all times of day and night – particularly care and key workers. Plus we can’t all ride a bike or walk miles or access public transport. Of course it is important that cycling should be made safer for all but also important that users of Lime Bikes ( presently littering and blocking our pavements) need more regulation and cyclists need education on road safety, laws and insurance. As noted above we’ve noticed a substantial rise in bike crime in our area and for instance, despite requests to the council to stop Lime and motorised bikes using Clissold Park as a speed cut through and use the cycle lanes on Green Lanes, making it safer for pedestrians, nothing has been done. LTNs have made women less safe at night having to walk down dark empty streets, likewise the old or disabled not being able to get a taxi to their door or from a tube station ( e.g. Arsenal – the road is an LTN). Taxis are starting to refuse fares to Hackney, falling foul of sudden appearances of LTNs and getting fines. So rather than shouting us down or trying to disparage our concerns as not legitimate it would be more helpful for the cycling lobby and the council to listen to other actual Hackney residents and try to understand the negative side of the LTN policy and how it can be addressed rather than isolating and pushing residents out of the borough. Residents, delivery & care vehicles and registered taxis could be able to have increased access on LTN roads perhaps? If the only solution offered is to ban all cars from Hackney what’s the next step – a ring road ?
Sarah Thompson! Well said. Couldn’t agree more
LTNs are a joy. The rat runs used to be hell. I lost count of how many people’s pets were killed by boy racers cutting through residential streets at great speed, many in terrible ways.
We also need to stop the culture of too big cars as status symbols which only block pavements, spilling out of parking places stealing space from the public, and threaten pedestrians and bicyclists.
I’d happily have the whole of Hackney pedestrianised and the streets reclaimed for people, except for shared/taxi and electric or pedal delivery vehicles, what we need to do next is stop through traffic that doesn’t start or end in Hackney; but just brings noise, congestion and pollution, while making the roads unsafe. And have a single, unambiguous, 20mph limit right across the borough.
There is still too much speeding.
What a waste having 100% of the streets lined with immobile steel boxes 99% of the time.
Thatcher’s “Great Car Economy” was a fraud, and it is over. There are just too many people, and too little space for them all to have cars.
A rule for what is an acceptable car size, i.e. to fit inside a standard garage or parking space, and people live within that; the council then recovering all of the garages that are currently being used only for additional storage.
The problem is, too many people wanting too much, and selfishly not being prepared with live within the available limits.
That the rate of decline in nitric oxides is totally unaffected by the introduction of LTN’s proves that their introduction has had no effect on air pollution as the protesters have been saying from the start, but they have made the houses in these nineteen streets much more valuable for their gentry owners who effectively run this corrupt council. The solution to the problem is to sack them in next May’s elections and elect Green Councillors who really do care about the environment all of us live in.