Rt. Hon. Grant Shapps, MP
Secretary of State for Transport
Department for Transport
Great Minster House
33 Horseferry Road
London SW1P 4DR
26 September 2021
Dear Secretary of State,
Request to call in Dulwich LTNs
We are an alliance of organisations in Dulwich representing thousands of local residents – local shops and businesses, GP surgeries, groups for older people and people with disabilities, and residents living on boundary roads – and are writing to ask you to call in Southwark Council’s Dulwich Streetspace LTN measures.
In your letter to councils on 16 October 2020, you wrote that the crucial test for an LTN is “does it deliver for the community it serves, and has it been done with their consultation.” You also said that schemes must balance the needs of cyclists and pedestrians with the needs of other road-users, including motorists and local businesses, and that you are not prepared to tolerate schemes where “the benefits to cycling and walking do not outweigh the dis-benefits for other road users”.
Southwark Council has just published the results of the community consultation they conducted in the Dulwich area this summer on the ETMOs they introduced in June and September/October last year. As Southwark’s Consultation Report shows, the majority of respondents did not feel that the schemes were achieving the Council’s aims, and two out of three respondents wanted the seven traffic measures in Dulwich to be removed and the roads returned to their original state. Only one in five respondents wanted the measures to be retained.
Key reasons given by the community for objecting to the measures are that, while the measures benefit a small number of streets in Dulwich, they dis-benefit:
- people living on surrounding roads on to which traffic and pollution have been displaced and where children go to school (the Council’s data confirms this traffic increase)
- older people with poor mobility and those with disabilities, particularly those who do not qualify for blue badges, who are suffering considerable difficulties in reaching GP surgeries, health centres, pharmacies and local shops, and who report feeling increasingly isolated because they receive fewer visits from family and friends, and because carers are unwilling to work in the area
- non blue light health and social care professionals, such as community midwives and first responders, who are unable to travel through the 24/7 road closures or timed restrictions
- local shops and businesses, who have suffered catastrophic declines in trade of up to 80% of pre-LTN sales and footfall, as road closures and huge fines (£2.7 million over five months from four cameras) have discouraged destination shoppers, who represent approximately 50% of customers in Dulwich
- sports clubs, dance and fitness centres, and after-school clubs for children, all of whom are fighting for survival because staff, teachers and pupils can no longer get to classes or to coaching sessions
However, despite the substantial two-thirds majority of respondents in the consultation zone asking for the measures to be removed, the Council has announced that it intends to ignore the results of its own consultation and retain the measures on a permanent basis with only minor modifications. None of these modifications address the dis-benefits listed above, and the continuing 24/7 closure of the junction in the middle of Dulwich will continue to divide the community in half.
Given that Southwark Council has decided not to balance the needs of cyclists and pedestrians with the needs of other road users, and to disregard the majority view of the respondents to its consultation, please will you be true to your word and not tolerate this undemocratic and unfair decision by Southwark Council by calling in the scheme and not providing them with the funding – estimated by the Council to be £770,000 – for the changes it wants to make?
Thank you.
Yours sincerely
The Dulwich Alliance