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news
Greener Hackney (picture credit Chris Kenyon).PNGHackney anti-LTN group fails to secure judicial review of emergency active travel measures
Opponents of a low traffic neighbourhood (LTN) in Hackney, the London borough with the highest levels of cycling, have had their application for a judicial review of recently introduced schemes refused by a High Court judge.
Mr Justice Kerr told the company that brought the action, Horrendous Hackney Road Closures Ltd (HHRC), that its application had been made too late, reports The Hackney Citizen.
In common with other boroughs across the capital, Hackney has used emergency active travel funding to make streets safer for cyclists and pedestrians – and as elsewhere, the initiatives it has brought in have been opposed by a small but vocal minority.
The judge said that any High Court challenge to the experimental traffic orders (ETOs) that bring in the LTNs into effect has to be lodged within six weeks, and since that deadline had been missed, the application for a judicial review failed.
HHRC had argued that the measures, designed to stop rat-running drivers from using residential streets, were “unlawful.”
The company claimed, among other things, that the new LTNs increased congestion on nearby main roads, and prevented ambulances from responding to emergencies in the areas within them, although research from Cycling UK has demonstrated that this is not the case.
The ETOs that the council has used to bring in the schemes means that they remain open for consultation for 18 months before any final measures are put in place.
A spokesperson for Hackney Council said: “We remain committed to engaging with all Hackney’s diverse residents and businesses on our plans to rebuild a greener Hackney in the wake of the pandemic, and are committed to our public sector equality duty.
“We would urge people to take part in the consultation at rebuildingagreenerhackney.commonplace.is or by writing to us at ‘Freepost Streetscene’.
“We will consider residents’ comments, alongside traffic monitoring, before a decision is made on whether or not to make measures permanent.
“This is in line with direct guidance from the Department for Transport on reallocating road space during the pandemic.”
LTNs in Hackney – as in most of London’s 32 boroughs – are nothing new, indeed pretty much any post-World War 2 housing scheme in the capital has them.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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25 comments
These are crazed addicts mainlining on Mail/ Express/ Sun hate speech (and also whatever paper the publicity seeking haggard old fashion devotee who threatened to kill cyclists worked for). Cyclists are just about the only group where hate crime/ assault has been legalised by default.
HHRC LIMITED (might be known as "Horrendous Hackney Road Closures" but that's not its company name) was incorporated as a private company limited by guarantee in November, with a sole director and three members.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13045878
Didn't they fund raise for this? Wouldn't you be just a teeny bit teed off with a lawyer that missed the point about the time limit?
Imagine devoting all this time, money and energy just to be able to drive your car down someone's street to save 90 seconds.
I have no opinion on the Road Closures in Horrendous Hackney - it's a strange name for an action group though...
My main criticism of the LTN in my street is that it doesn't actually stop bad driving. There has been a slight reduction in traffic, as drivers no longer use it as a cut through, but not much. But it hasn't stopped close passing or speeding by the nutters who do. I'm not convinced my road is much safer for cyclists and pedestrians than it was before. Certainly when I'm cycling, the percentage of nutcases in cars seems similar.
Overall, I think the LTN is a bit of a bodge with regard to making people think twice about using their car on journeys. Road user charging on a national scale would be more effective in making drivers think about whether their car journeys are actually necessary. Technology makes road user charging a lot easier and less complex to implement than it was even five years ago. And as electric cars become more common, it'd be a far more effective and fair way to replace both fuel taxation and VED.
I find the whole furore around LTNs/filtering of back streets incomprehensible from any logical viewpoint. It seems to simply be opposition to anything that might nudge the status quo ever so slightly away from cars must be allowed to get everywhere all the time at all costs. None of the LTNs/filters I've seen actually deny access to drivers who have a reason to be there. They just stop visitors/passers through from driving down every single road. We built A-roads, we built motorways, we built dual carriageways for through journeys. Side roads with houses should be just that - side roads for living on. Access is convenient, but through travel shouldn't be necessary or allowed.
I hope one day we all start to acknowledge and work towards the idea of towns/cities as places to live not places to drive cars.
Since the late 1960s, new housing areas have been built on the principle of restricting through traffic - an LTN is a retrofit. Amazing how tribal it gets and the depths a few are plumbing to make their (non) argument.
But still, I know a bloke who knows a fireman who says...
I think the answer is in your post! " It seems to simply be opposition to anything that might nudge the status quo ever so slightly away from cars must be allowed to get everywhere all the time at all costs." and "We built A-roads, we built motorways, we built dual carriageways for through journeys. Side roads with houses should be just that - side roads for living on."
By building these motorways etc for the last 60-odd years (or almost a century if we go back to the early A-roads, dual carriageways and road straightenings of the 1930s), we've built up an expectation (globally) that, as you say, "cars must be allowed to get everywhere all the time at all costs."
Oh dear! Another 'first-post' er on an extreme-nutter platform. Probably an anti-vaxxer in another identity.
Beat me to it. My thoughts exactly.
I live here. As a cyclist and vehicle user, this has been a disaster for motorists. The militant councillor and Hackney Mayor do not care about engagement. Traffic chaos and pollution abound. Their ideas are draconian - charging people for driving through. The problem lies in a clear battle between cyclist vs motorist and yet again falls down on being harmonious.
Is it any wonder the motorist feels such antipathy for cyclists with ill thought out scheme that will only significantly worsen when things start to normalise.
It's not about cyc lists v motorists. It's people v road violence, pollution and wasted money.
To my knowledge fewer than 1/2 of London families have access to a car.
If you have a car you can still use it.
What is your problem?
They say that when you are privileged equality looks like oppression. This is what London's minority of car drivers is now facing.
Nail hit fair and square on the head there.
Top marks mate.
Sublime first post on road.cc from the anti-LTN group rep.
If motorists feel such antipathy for cyclists perhaps they should ask why. Those people you label as 'cyclists' are real people too, they're trying to get from A to B. The ones you see around you did not plan the LTN. You're making this a tribal thing without any thought.
You should know that areas like Hackney have a large number of households without a car yet you want cars to dominate every street just so you can drive wherever you want. If you live there and you're a cyclist then stick up for cycling, for clean air, for quieter and safer streets. Maybe individual LTN designs would benefit from tweaking but the core concept is sound. It is an attempt to move away from the poisonous, noisy, dangerous shitholes that car-centric planning creates.
Life will 'normalise' and improve for everyone when selfish people realise that driving wherever you want, all the time and making other options difficult or unviable is not fair, equitable or sustainable.
On yer bike, mate!
No no no. He's a cyclist himself. He's even got a photo on his profile....
He's a cyclist himself. He's even got a photo on his profile....
You're right! The entirety of Lancashire Constabulary similarly is a cyclist him/ herself.
Do you live in the proposed LTN? I don't know the details of the scheme but I am interested to know how you are affected by it.
Hes probably a cab driver from Romford
Would I be right in assuming your last bike had stabilisers?
There's only one of the latter causing the former. I'll leave it to you to work out which one.
Trouble is, we've tried it your way for a century, and it doesn't work: it's a disaster for pedestrians, wheelchair users, cyclists, people who choose to breathe,...
If, by "normalise" you mean "go back to how it was", then you - and all the other vehicle users stuck in the queue - are missing the point. We need to change, and this is an opportunity to do so. It will disrupt - change does that - but it needs to happen.
If there are problems, the right thing to do is to adjust behaviours, possibly adjust the layout, not get rid of it. We need to start that adjustment from the first pass, not by going back to the beginning.
And your definition of "harmonious" is..?
50 years sleepwalking into car dominance of every corner and crevice of our lives, LTNs an ever so slight unwinding of this - drivists playing the hard done by victim, their minds imploding because their travel choices are dysfunctional, offer no future and they have no experience or vision of anything better.
We'll all be as "harmonious" as you like when the harassment and killing of cyclists stops and children in our cities can breathe properly.
Too many cars is now the source of so much all-round angst, division and pressure. Too many cars now does as much to imprison us as it did once set us free.
I think we should make all residential cul de sacs into through roads, it will mean a few houses being knocked down and gardens removed, but anything to pander to the motoring lobby. Why should anyone get to live without huge amounts of traffic thundering past their front door at speed.
And it will aid emergency call outs and access for the less than abled drivers, which both feature as NEW and GREAT concerns of the motoring public, not in anyway the selfish desire to be able to drive directly wherever they want.
"as a cyclist and vehicle user"....
"problem lies in a clear battle between cyclist vs motorist"
Does this mean you are at war with yourself?
Well they didn't actually say they were a 'motorist'. I'm a cyclist and a vehicle user - the vehicle I mostly use is my bicycle.