Tower Hamlets council has decided to spend £2.5million to remove its “liveable streets” low traffic neighbourhood (LTN) scheme.
This is despite residents’ support for retaining the scheme with calls for this money to be spent elsewhere.
The decision to remove traffic restrictions in Columbia Road, home of the popular flower market, Arnold Circus, and Old Bethnal Green, was made on Wednesday evening at Tower Hamlets town hall.
However, the option to retain Tower Hamlets’ LTN was supported by the Met Police, Transport for London (TfL), Bart’s Hospital and 58 per cent of Tower Hamlets residents.
The liveable streets scheme cost £2.7million to implement in 2021.
Low traffic neighbourhoods aim to reduce traffic by using cameras, planters and bollards to restrict access to certain routes, as well as introducing walking and cycling infrastructure.
Rebecca Unerzagt, a Bethnal Green parent, said: “We have been consulted three times on this issue and three times people who actually live here want to keep the measures.
“It only went in a couple of years ago, it’s a real waste of money.”
The campaign group Save Our Safer Streets, who gathered outside Tower Hamlets town hall on Wednesday, condemned the council for the scheme’s removal.
Jane Harris, spokesperson for the group, 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.”
Harris added: “We’ve seen a massive difference the scheme has made, we have much safer roads, our children are much safer, we know the air quality is safer.”
Tower Hamlets has the fifth worst air quality in London and high rates of childhood obesity according to the council’s own public health report last year.
However, council data shows that air quality is improving everywhere in Tower Hamlets.
Dr Emma Radcliffe, a GP and vice chair of the Tower Hamlets local medical council said: “Keeping the schemes is absolutely the best thing for public health in the borough.”
According to TfL, 71 per cent of Tower Hamlets’ residents do not own cars – nevertheless, the council has remained adamant over the removal.
In a statement following the decision, Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman said: “While LTNs improve air quality in their immediate vicinity, they push traffic down surrounding arterial roads, typically lived on by less affluent residents.
“They are also a barrier for families to get around in what is the most densely populated place in the country,” he added.
Rahman assumed office in May last year, inheriting the scheme a year into its implementation and pledged to remove the scheme in his 2022 manifesto.
His actions have been described by campaigners as a political move: “It’s become like an ideological crusade that’s absolutely nothing to do with people’s lives,” Harris said.
“That’s the frustrating thing, even people who might not have wanted it in the first place, most of them do not want £2million spent on taking the roads out – they can think of a much better use for that money.”
Rob Andari, also from the campaign group, said: “We would love the council to spend that money on things Tower Hamlets residents really need like better housing, more funding for schools and more help during the cost of living crisis.”
Despite the council’s decision, it promised to invest £6million pounds into improving air quality measures and will retain accessible walking routes, pedestrian space and 33 “school streets”.
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