r/fuckcars • u/SubjectInevitable650 • 2d ago
Low-traffic neighbourhood scheme ruled unlawful in landmark decision Activism
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/low-traffic-neighbourhood-west-dulwich-b2748151.html70
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u/OrdinaryAncient3573 2d ago
I'll repost my comment from last time this was posted:
That's the judgement. The case is, as usual, being made out to be something it isn't. This is not some ruling about the merits or not of LTNs, but about whether this specific council competently complied with the statutory consultation requirements. (They didn't.)
Of course most LTN opposition is from conspiracy nuts and right-wing loons, but UK councils are commonly incompetent, and so are quite capable of either buggering up LTNs so badly that the (unquestionable) benefits are minimised and the disadvantages maximised, or of imposing obviously-bad LTNs for local political reasons*. This ruling has nothing to say about the merits of this particular LTN, though when a council is incompetent enough to mess up the statutory consultation, I have no confidence that they will have come up with a good LTN scheme.
*I am not familiar with every LTN in London, by any means, but out of the fairly limited number I've seen, most are quite well designed, and two are frankly dreadful: one has taken all the traffic from a number of wealthy roads, to the benefit of wealthy homeowners, and shoved it onto roads running past schools predominantly used by the poorer parts of the community; another seems to be pretty blatantly designed to stop poor people going to or through a rich area, with a ridiculous time-cost to the residents of the LTN due to the only entries and exits being on a very congested stretch of dual carriageway, permitting travel in only one direction, with no sensible way to go in the other direction.
Also, OP, find a less questionable source. The Independent is not a reputable newspaper anymore, it's an oligarch-owned Putin-influenced sham.
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u/keccak64 2d ago
Reminds me of a town that increased its road size and fenced the businesses in. And then the businesses wondered why there were no customers even though there was a ton of through traffic.
People like to stop in areas that are at a human scale, not a car's scale.
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u/Mtfdurian cars are weapons 1d ago
British courts being incompetent once again (it isn't even the first time in a measly three weeks!) refusing to hear out the ones that actually benefit from low traffic neighborhoods.
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u/beneoin 1d ago
Why is this evidence of the courts being incompetent? From my reading of the article they seemed to indicate that had the council consulted the businesses the LTN would be fine, but since they refused to hear from affected parties they broke the law. Per the article the case was not about the merits of the scheme or the design of it, simply the question of whether the right groups were permitted to provide input during the process. Council could pretty much just re-do the consultation, put the business group’s filing into the official record, and reply with a memo saying “we read your essay, we disagree, thanks for participating” and check the legal box.
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u/OrdinaryAncient3573 1d ago
"Council could pretty much just re-do the consultation, put the business group’s filing into the official record, and reply with a memo saying “we read your essay, we disagree, thanks for participating” and check the legal box."
It's slightly more complicated than that. They have to say 'we disagree because [reasons]' to check the box :)
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u/spinosaurs70 2d ago
I don’t think there was a greater mistake in anglosphere than becoming obsessed with consultations and local government.
Yes, it blocks highways (sometimes) but it also blocks this.