Objections to the Dulwich Village ETOs
The text below sets out (in detail) our formal objections to the Experimental Traffic Orders that apply to Calton Avenue; Dulwich Village; and Court Lane. However, should you wish to print these objections, you might prefer to download the PDF version of this page.
Please send your own reasons for objecting (using your own words, but referring to the Summary of Objections below if that’s helpful) to traffic.orders@southwark.gov.uk, copying in highways@southwark.gov.uk, as soon as possible.
15 November 2020
Objections by One Dulwich to the following Experimental Traffic Orders (ETOs):
The London Borough of Southwark (Prescribed Routes) (Calton Avenue and Dulwich Village) Experimental Traffic Order 2020
The London Borough of Southwark (Prescribed Routes) (Court Lane) Experimental Traffic Order 2020
Introduction
This is a formal set of objections to the above ETOs, following the procedure directed by the Council’s notice of 18 June 2020. This submission is made by the campaign group One Dulwich, which has more than 1700 supporters.
One Dulwich supports Southwark Council’s overarching objectives of reducing traffic, making active travel easier and improving air quality.
However, we do not believe that the Experimental Traffic Orders that closed Court Lane, Calton Avenue and the Dulwich Village junction in June 2020 have achieved, or will achieve, these objectives, irrespective of other planned measures.
As a campaign group arguing for timed restrictions as opposed to permanent closures, we are asking the Council to modify these ETOs at the six-month review, and to work with the local community to come up with solutions that meet our joint objectives.
In the numbered paragraphs below, we set out 10 objections to these two ETOs and the grounds for objecting to them, explaining what the Council has said are the reasons for them and why they fail to meet these objectives and/or have been incorrectly applied.
The purpose of this submission is to call for an immediate modification of these ETOs so that camera-controlled, timed restrictions apply at the Dulwich Village junction, not 24/7 closures.
Summary of Objections
The following is a headline summary of our objections. Detailed explanations of the grounds for these objections, and recommended solutions, follow this section.
1. The ETOs are not delivering the Council’s stated objectives.
2. The ETOs are socially unjust.
3. The ETOs discriminate against vulnerable groups in contravention of The Equality Act 2010.
4. The ETOs do not have the support of the local community.
5. The ETOs are not bringing about a modal shift.
6. The ETOs are damaging local businesses.
7. The Council has failed to introduce adequate, evidence-based, monitoring of its objectives.
8. The ETOs are making life less safe for local residents by blocking access for Emergency Services.
9. The ETOs have disrupted road networks, causing the Council to fail to fulfil its obligation under the Traffic Management Act 2004 to ensure they are managed effectively.
10. 24/7 closures are disproportionate; timed closures, as in Phase 2 ETOs, would be sufficient.
Detailed Objections
1. The ETOs are not delivering the Council’s stated objectives.
The Council said the ETOs, introduced as part of the Dulwich Streetspace Programme in response to Covid-19, were designed to “make it easier and safer to keep up social distancing”, “help people walk and cycle more” and “avoid a sharp increase in car use”. (Dulwich Streetspace FAQ July 2020). Overall, these objectives are not being met.
Grounds for objection:
a) Taking Dulwich as a whole, these objectives are not being met. A few residential roads (for example, Calton Avenue and Court Lane) have been emptied of traffic, making it easier to cycle on those roads, but many more residential roads are experiencing much greater volumes of traffic than before, making active travel (cycling and walking) and social distancing much more difficult, less safe and less healthy. For example, congestion and pollution have increased on East Dulwich Grove and Lordship Lane, which have high levels of pedestrian footfall, many of the area’s schools, and the new Tessa Jowell Health Centre.
b) The Phase 2 measures on Dulwich Village, Burbage Road, Turney Road and Townley Road will not reverse this. They may reduce traffic levels on some roads at peak hours, but the overall displacement will remain.
c) This displacement has not been mitigated prior to implementation, now identified as best practice in the Council’s Response to the recommendations of the Environment Scrutiny Report Air Quality July 2020, dated 20 October 2020, which says, “Where traffic may be displaced onto main roads, the council must monitor the impact on air quality, and mitigate negative effects in advance of implementation, possibly by widening pavements and creating cycle lanes, managing traffic to reduce vehicle idling time and introducing green screening programmes.”
d) It also runs counter to the Southwark Movement Plan 2019, which says: “As the Highway Authority, we also have an obligation under the Traffic Management Act (TMA) 2004 to ensure road networks are managed effectively to support our communities and their movement, improve safety, minimise congestion and disruption to all traffic, including pedestrians and vulnerable road users.”
Comment/Request to Council:
e) Given the negative impact of the ETOs on roads such as East Dulwich Grove, Lordship Lane and Dulwich Common; the Council’s obligation under the Traffic Management Act (TMA) 2004 not being properly discharged; the Council’s own new guidance on transport schemes not being followed; and the primary objectives of the ETOs not being met; we request the ETOs are changed from 24/7 closures to timed restrictions at peak hours only.
2. The ETOs are socially unjust.
The Council has identified air pollution as a social justice issue (Environment Scrutiny Commission Air Quality report, July 2020). But the increase in traffic congestion on several main residential roads in Dulwich – traffic displaced as a consequence of the ETOs – has increased pollution for large numbers of residents, many of them vulnerable groups with a high-risk profile for Covid-19.
Grounds for objection:
a) Although the Council has said in the past that “Air quality data will not be part of the monitoring process, as it is not possible to solely filter out the traffic contribution to poor air quality”, (Dulwich Streetspace FAQ July 2020), the Council’s more recent recommendation (see 1c) is: “Where traffic may be displaced onto main roads, the council must monitor the impact on air quality, and mitigate negative effects in advance of implementation…”
b) The original Environment Scrutiny Commission Air Quality report, July 2020 points out: “All the data suggests that children, disabled people, BAME communities and those on the lowest incomes, who are least equipped to cope with the ill-effects of pollution in particular, are most at risk.”
c) The Council has also highlighted that “Covid-19 is a respiratory infection that appears to be exacerbated by air pollution according to early analysis. Covid-19 also has a greater infection and fatality rate amongst many vulnerable groups (including those with respiratory and cardio-vascular conditions, the elderly, BAME people, those on low incomes and men)”. (Covid-19 Post lockdown Report, June 2020, page 2)
Comment/Request to Council
d) It is hard to understand why the Council persists with these ETOs in the knowledge that traffic displaced by the 24/7 closures has moved on to main residential roads, several of which are known to be in areas of high deprivation, such as parts of East Dulwich Grove, Lordship Lane and Dulwich Common (see English Indices of Deprivation, Southwark, 2019 ). Every day that passes with the ETOs in place exposes these communities to increased levels of pollution 24/7.
e) We support the Council’s statement in the original Environment Scrutiny Commission Air Quality Report, July 2020 that there must be “a proper scheme design: modelling the likely impacts of traffic interventions, understanding the communities who benefit and those who benefit least. This would mean an expansion of air quality monitoring throughout the borough with clear-eyed analysis of the outcomes” and urge the Council to implement this in the Dulwich area without delay, making its findings available on a real-time basis.
f) It is not acceptable to use “change to traffic levels as a proxy for the air pollution contribution by motor traffic” (Dulwich Streetspace FAQ July 2020), as it is widely accepted that this produces false indicators. For example, congested traffic appears to indicate fewer vehicles as they take longer to pass a monitoring point, while idling traffic produces up to twice the amount of vehicle emissions.
3. The ETOs discriminate against vulnerable groups in contravention of The Equality Act 2010.
The Council states that its Equality Impact Assessment (EqIA) for this scheme “showed benefits” to disabled and elderly residents (Dulwich Streetspace FAQ July 2020) due to “the reduction in motor traffic, and the safer and more pedestrian-friendly street environments” and because “all areas can be accessed by residents, carers, visitors and taxis”. The Community Impact Statement accompanying the recommendation to implement the ETOs (Covid-19 Post lockdown Report, June 2020, page 5) states that “The proposals have no disproportionate impact on any particular age, disability” and other characteristics.
However, oral and written evidence from elderly and disabled residents, doctors, community midwives, and healthcare and social care visitors suggests that vulnerable residents are being severely disadvantaged by the ETOs, both physically and mentally, because of the difficulties these groups have – and the difficulties their carers encounter – in having to travel further and take considerably longer (because of congestion) to reach their destinations. This is discriminatory under the Equality Act 2010, socially unjust and morally unacceptable.
Grounds for objection:
a) Statutory guidance accompanying the 23 May 2020 ‘Traffic Management Act 2004: network management in response to Covid-19’ says: “The public sector equality duty still applies, and in making any changes to their road networks, authorities must consider the needs of disabled people and those with other protected characteristics. Accessibility requirements apply to temporary measures as they do to permanent ones” and that “Authorities should seek input from stakeholders during the design phase.” The Council has not followed this guidance.
b) No input to the EqIA was sought during the design of these ETOs from relevant stakeholders and the Council has not published its findings on the grounds that “As the measures are a live trial, the impact assessment is being updated with the learning from the trial of any emerging issues. The developmental nature of the assessments is the reason for these not being published” (Response from a Council officer to a resident on 20 August). This appears to contradict the statutory guidance on accessibility requirements applying to temporary measures.
c) The Equality Act 2010 requires public bodies, when shaping policy, to have an Equality Duty to consider the needs of all individuals and, in particular, nine ‘protected characteristics’, including age, disability, pregnancy and race. However, because the ETOs have increased traffic on roads like East Dulwich Grove, Lordship Lane and Dulwich Common, some of those with protected characteristics – women giving birth at home who are dependent on community midwives, for example, or the elderly and disabled needing home visits from carers and GPs – have received worse access to services than prior to the junction closure.
Comment/Request to Council
d) Allowing this situation to arise and continue is discriminatory, in contravention of the Council’s Equality Duty as outlined in the Equality Act, socially unjust and morally unacceptable. In order to protect the access to services that protected groups had before the 24/7 closures, the Council should allow vulnerable residents who are car-dependent, and the healthcare and social care workers who look after them, to be able to traverse the junction in the middle of Dulwich Village. The Movement Plan 2019 (Executive Summary) talks about placing “fairness at the core of our work”. The current measures are not fair to vulnerable residents.
4. The ETOs do not have the support of the local community.
The Council claims that the ETOs had broad support in recent community engagement. This unsubstantiated claim is based on a different scheme – Our Healthy Streets: Dulwich, now abandoned – that involved a different, more holistic set of measures, which itself was based on traffic data since shown to be inaccurate. (See http://www.onedulwich.uk/fact-checker for detailed analysis.) Recent petitions to the council in October for and against the Dulwich Village junction closure (For: 54; Against: 2,780) show that opposition to the ETOs is fifty times greater than support. Our campaign group One Dulwich, which proposes a compromise between these polarised positions, has more than 1,700 supporters, including nearly 1,000 living in Dulwich Village on both sides of the junction (see http://www.onedulwich.uk/supporters for details).
Grounds for objection:
a) The OHSD consultation that the Council began, but did not complete, was a set of proposals for a much more holistic scheme, which included many more interventions, particularly to the east of the Dulwich Village junction, that are not being progressed. These included a permit system working alongside cameras to exempt residents from the restrictions. It also explicitly said that it wished to “tackle only through traffic at peak hours, not destination traffic to the area” (‘Guiding principles’, OHSD public consultation slides, March 2020). This was the context and the premise on which a number of local residents (706 according to unpublished and unverified council survey results) said they supported the closure of Dulwich Village junction. This means that any support for the OHSD scheme should not be used to imply support for the ETOs.
b) The OHSD consultation report has never been published, so it is not possible to verify details such as how many of the 706 respondents who claimed to be in favour were under 18, which roads were counted as being in the consultation area, whether paper responses were included, whether duplicated entries were removed, or whether respondents were strongly or mildly for or against. All the proposals were originally due to be subject to modelling and further in-depth consultation before implementation. Lockdown prevented this. The OHSD process is incomplete and its results should not, therefore, be directing policy.
c) The traffic data used in the OHSD consultation was incorrect and misleading. Freedom of information (FOI) requests, and analysis of published council data for the OHSD consultation, show that traffic levels through Dulwich Village and along Calton Avenue in the years leading up to the closure of the junction had not increased as claimed but had actually shown a small decrease. This means that the closure of the junction was based on a false premise, and the decision to proceed is compromised.
Comment/Request to Council:
d) The advice given by officers to Councillors in the Appendix to the Covid-19 Post-Lockdown Highway Schemes suggested a level of approval of the ETOs by local residents that cannot be substantiated. Recent petitions to the Council show that those against the ETOs outnumber those in favour by a factor of fifty.
e) One Dulwich urges the Council to introduce timed restrictions instead of 24/7 closures at Dulwich Village junction, as introduced at other junctions in Dulwich under Phase 2 and as supported by other residents’ groups, as a pragmatic, middle way forward that our community can unite behind.
5. The ETOs are not bringing about a modal shift.
Without considerable investment in alternative modes of transport (public transport, or community transport initiatives) for those who cannot making their journeys by walking or cycling, there can be no significant modal shift away from car use (that is, no significant reduction in car use) in the Dulwich area.
Grounds for objection:
a) The Council’s Response to the recommendations of the Environment Scrutiny Report Air Quality July 2020 says that Low Traffic Neighbourhoods should be implemented as a priority in Southwark in areas “with high levels of public transport (high PTAL ratings), poor air quality, lower levels of car ownership, in areas of deprivation and where the programs would impact positively on local schools and hospitals.” None of these criteria applies to Dulwich. Dulwich has a low PTAL rating (2-3) and (possibly in consequence) higher levels of car ownership than in other parts of Southwark. Traffic displaced by the closure of Dulwich Village junction is impacting negatively on seven schools in Dulwich Village, Half Moon Lane and East Dulwich Grove, and the Tessa Jowell Health Centre.
b) The low PTAL rating makes it almost impossible for the Dulwich LTN, as currently planned, to be effective in bringing about modal shift. The New Southwark Plan (Submission Version January 2020), AV.07 Dulwich Area Vision, describes Dulwich as “Accessible by rail from mainline stations and some bus routes, but there is no station in the centre of Dulwich Village, there is no tube connection to Dulwich and the area is less well served by public transport than many other parts of Southwark…” If walking and cycling are not possible (for any number of reasons – health, age, confidence, pregnancy, type of work, length of commute, etc), and public transport isn’t available, the current level of car use will continue. Traffic is not evaporating but is simply being displaced on to other roads.
c) As the Council’s Environment Scrutiny Commission Air Quality report July 2020 says (describing a situation where public transport is temporarily rather than permanently unavailable), “There are certain criteria that must be met for traffic evaporation to take place effectively, a fact that is often overlooked by policy makers. If drivers can find an alternative route where levels of congestion are acceptable, they will continue to drive. If alternatives like cycling are deemed unsafe due to lack of protected cycleways or if there is insufficient space on public transport (as is the case at the moment due to the need for social distancing) then those with access to vehicles will continue to drive, increasing traffic congestion and air pollution on boundary/main roads.”
d) Dulwich already enjoyed a high level of active travel before the ETOs were introduced, with two out of three journeys (65%) made on foot (Dulwich Area Traffic Management Study Final Report 2018), three times the London average, and nearly twice the Southwark average (37%). Cycling in Dulwich (3%) was around the national average and was not higher, the report suggests, because it is “probably substituted by walking”. It is not clear what new targets for walking or cycling are being set, how this is being monitored, or what scope there is, if any, to increase active travel overall.
e) If the Dulwich LTN has the borders of the old Areas A, B and C from the OHSD consultation, which broadly define ‘Dulwich Village’, it is roughly 2.3 square kilometres and therefore too large to operate effectively. As the Guide to Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, produced by Living Streets and the London Cycling Campaign, says, “You should be able to walk across a neighbourhood in fifteen minutes at most. Larger, and people start driving inside the neighbourhood.” Walking across Dulwich takes 30 minutes or longer (for example, Townley Road to Croxted Road).
Comment/Request to Council:
f) Given that traffic evaporation will not occur unless there is a better and wider range of alternative transport, particularly an east-west bus service, timed restrictions should replace 24/7 closures at Dulwich Village junction in order to reduce the amount of traffic displaced on to other neighbouring roads.
6. The ETOs are damaging local businesses.
The Council states that “It is absolutely vital that the measures we put in place support local businesses, which have been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis”, and that LTNs “are good for local businesses, as people who walk and cycle visit their local high street more often and typically spend more money over time than people who come by car”. It also suggests that the “new public space in Dulwich Village should allow for easier access to the businesses there, and better use of the pavement space”. (Dulwich Streetspace FAQ July 2020). These statements are not supported by the local businesses themselves.
Grounds for objection:
a) The majority of traders and shopkeepers in Dulwich Village and Melbourne Grove do not support the current road interventions. Lordship Lane traders also report an adverse impact on their businesses due to the closures.
b) Traders in Dulwich Village have reported a reduction in footfall since the beginning of Phase 1 and anticipate a further reduction with the introduction of Phase 2. This is partly due to customers who previously came by car finding it difficult to park, but also because the closure of Dulwich Village junction has discouraged cross-Dulwich shopping (i.e. from the Village to East Dulwich and vice-versa).
c) Traders in Dulwich Village have been adversely impacted by Phase 1 – and are also concerned about the impact of Phase 2 – in relation to incoming deliveries. National distribution networks cannot easily adjust delivery times and there is real anxiety that suppliers may find delivering to Dulwich too difficult if they have to work round timed restrictions. For some retailers offering fresh produce, this may result in shortages, a narrower range of products on sale and a negative impact on sales.
d) Far from the closure in Dulwich Village enabling better use of pavement space, the increase in pollution and noise from congested traffic has caused some shops to remove outside seating and close doors to stop pollution and noise entering their premises. Unfortunately, this also makes their shops less attractive to enter.
e) Shopkeepers are concerned by the lack of consultation, meetings in the past with councillors that have not resulted in any action, and the lack of contact and/or perceived interest in their welfare or the viability of their businesses.
f) The closure of the junction has particularly affected businesses whose retail offer includes home deliveries. The closure could not have come at a worse time, as businesses have to offer home deliveries during lockdowns, particularly for vulnerable residents who are shielding at home. The additional time spent in long queues of traffic on boundary roads by traders simply to get from one side of the Village to the other is making their businesses even harder to operate at a time when they are struggling to sustain them. The junction closure has already resulted in the opticians Roger Pope not returning to their Dulwich Village premises as planned.
Comment/Request to Council:
g) Timed restrictions as opposed to 24/7 closures would directly improve business, footfall and the ability of traders to deliver goods and to receive deliveries from suppliers. Swift action is required to prevent businesses from folding.
7. The Council has failed to introduce adequate, evidence-based, monitoring of its objectives.
The Council has said on many occasions that the ETOs will be closely monitored but, apart from traffic strips on a few roads and the discredited online Commonplace feedback site (our ward councillors have acknowledged problems with the questions on this site), there is little evidence that this is taking place.
a) The Council stated in July (Dulwich Streetspace FAQ July 2020) that its monitoring criteria are: modal shift towards walking and cycling; qualitative feedback from residents, local community and businesses; use of public space by the community for active travel, leisure or play; net changes in traffic in residential areas and on distributor roads.
b) Automatic traffic counting strips were put on a few roads in June. A few more roads were included in September. Because of this, before-and-after data will be inconsistent.There is no evidence of any pedestrian counts. There has been no monitoring of air quality and no baseline against which any pollution monitoring can be assessed.
c) There is no detailed monitoring plan. There are no performance targets or key performance indicators (KPIs). It is not clear, for example, how the monitoring criteria above (point 7 of the Dulwich Streetspace FAQ July 2020) will be assessed. For example:
* How will modal shift be measured?
* How and when will qualitative feedback from residents, local community and businesses be gathered, and who will be included?
* How will use of public space be measured?
* Which residential areas will be measured for net changes in traffic, and how large will they be?
* Which distributor roads will be measured for net changes in traffic?
d) The Commonplace site contains leading questions that are confirmation-biased. Ward councillors have acknowledged that this is unsatisfactory. Many people are unaware of the site; many others (especially the elderly and those on low incomes) are not online. Some local residents have found it difficult to leave comments because of the bias of the questions.
Comment/Request to Council:
e) The failure of previous surveys to reflect the community’s views fairly or accurately (it has never been disclosed, for example, whether or not the 200+ respondents to Phase 2 of OHSD were local residents), and the presentation of incorrect data (during Phase 3 of OHSD), have created a loss of trust in Council surveys, consultation and engagement. To help overcome this, we ask the Council to publish its monitoring plan, targets and KPIs for the current ETOs, and the evidence it has obtained so far; to conduct independent surveys of local residents and businesses that ask neutral questions and do not require internet access; and to base future decisions on evidence-based, representative, quantitative facts, not small-scale, opinion-based, online surveys that are open to manipulation by professional lobbying groups from outside the area.
f) For the reasons given above in point d), we do not believe the Council should give weight to feedback on the current Commonplace site.
8. The ETOs are making life less safe for local residents by blocking access for Emergency Services.
There have been many instances since the ETOs were implemented where ambulances have been hampered or delayed in getting to people needing help as a direct consequence of the Dulwich Village junction being closed to vehicles. Lost minutes in rapid treatment can be critical for some conditions (e.g. stroke) and injuries. The original Community Impact Statement accompanying the recommendation to implement the ETOs (Covid-19 Post lockdown Report, June 2020, page 5) states that they would provide “improved access for key services such as emergency and refuse vehicles”.
Since then, the Council has also said that “Emergency services are consulted as part of the statutory consultation process which is required when Experimental Traffic Orders are issued. In addition, officers liaise directly with the services to keep them informed of the measures and to seek feedback” (Dulwich Streetspace FAQ July 2020).
However, the Emergency Services have recently made it clear that their preference is for removable or camera-operated restrictions over hard closures so that access is unhindered and response times can be maintained.
a) The London Ambulance Service, South East Area, has stated in an email on 6 October to a local resident: “The LAS position to this and all other schemes remains the same, we oppose any hard road closures and advocate camera enforcement which allows emergency access to be uninhibited ensuring that response times are not increased.”
b) The Council’s report for Peckham Rye in Batch 4 of the Covid-19 Post lockdown highway schemes, confirms this: “Emergency services (Fire, Police and Ambulance) have indicated they will not support schemes which promote hard road closures, as they will increase response times. Their preference is for camera enforced closures without physical prevention for vehicles.”
c) Steven Vydelingum from the London Fire Brigade recently said (at the Council’s Environment Scrutiny Commission meeting on 4 November 2020) that if there are static flowerpots or raised planters, LFB vehicles would have issues getting through, and that the LFB’s aspiration would be for removable bollards over planters.
Comment/Request to Council
d) To ensure that the emergency services can reach residents and businesses as quickly as possible, we ask that the ETOs are modified as a matter of urgency to allow access for emergency vehicles.
9. The ETOs have disrupted road networks, causing the Council to fail to fulfil its obligation under the Traffic Management Act 2004 to ensure they are managed effectively.
The Council says that, “as the Highway Authority, we also have an obligation under the Traffic Management Act (TMA) 2004 to ensure road networks are managed effectively to support our communities and their movement, improve safety, minimise congestion and disruption to all traffic, including pedestrians and vulnerable road users” (Movement Plan 2019). The ETOs go against this obligation.
Grounds for objection:
a) By closing Court Lane and Calton Avenue, both designated connector roads, to all motorised traffic, the Council is failing to fulfil its obligation under the TMA.
b) The Council says that the ETOs have created “a new shared public space in Dulwich Village” (Dulwich Streetspace FAQ July 2020). This space – an existing highway closed to traffic - is currently unsafe, as pedestrians and cyclists are not clear who has priority. In addition, the old, raised edges of the pedestrian island have become even more of a trip hazard, as they are incongruous and unexpected. There have been several falls, including a serious injury requiring hospitalisation.
c) According to page 18 of the Council’s Movement Plan 2019, ambitious schemes to close streets and reallocate space should take place in areas that meet certain criteria, including “an identified lack of public space in the surrounding neighbourhood”, and “identified community and business support for public space at the location”. These criteria do not apply to this location. As a ward councillor has acknowledged, the new space at the junction is a consequence of the 24/7 closures, not the purpose of it.
d) Because of the ETOs, the road network is now stretched to capacity, and its resilience is reduced. Temporary closures on main residential roads (because of roadworks or, as recently on both Dulwich Common and East Dulwich Grove, burst water mains) produce area-wide traffic gridlock.
Comment/Request to Council:
e) By introducing timed restrictions, as opposed to 24/7 closures, at Dulwich Village junction, the Council would be fulfilling its obligations under TMA 2004 by reducing congestion and disruption to traffic, supporting the movement of the community, especially vulnerable users, and improving the resilience of the network.
f) Dulwich Village is already rich in public spaces, from Dulwich Park, Belair, the Dulwich Village Orchard on Gallery Road, and Dulwich Woods, to wide pavements (the ends of Court Lane and Calton Avenue widened still further in 2017) and seating areas on the east side of Dulwich Village itself. It is not reasonable to create even more public space if the consequence of this is to make neighbouring roads congested and polluted.
10. 24/7 closures are disproportionate; timed closures as in Phase 2 ETOs would be sufficient.
The Council has acknowledged that the traffic problems in Dulwich are ones that persist during peak hours only – identified by the Council in relation to other Dulwich locations as 8am to 10am and 3pm to 6pm. This is equally true of the junctions affected by the ETOs. This is quite apart from the approximately twelve weeks of school holidays each year during which the traffic problems are diminished. Consequently, we believe closing the Dulwich Village junction 24/7 is disproportionate and unnecessarily restrictive. Timed restrictions with cameras, as in Phase 2, would be sufficient and proportionate. In addition, time-restricted street closures are specifically mentioned as best practice in Southwark’s Movement Plan 2019 (Action 11, page 20): “How people use our streets changes throughout the day…We need to look at how we manage these variations to make best use of space.”
The Council claims that only 24/7 permeable closures, and not camera-controlled timed restrictions, are possible at this junction, because “it is too complex and too busy”, that “it is not safe to have selective access at signalised junctions”, that “cameras are normally used only where permeable filters are too restrictive, for example on bus routes”, and that “a permit system working alongside cameras to exempt residents from these restrictions” are “costly solutions” that “cannot be considered at this time” (Dulwich Streetspace FAQ , July 2020). (On 13 November 2020, the Council suggested again that the problem was one of adapting traffic signals and, more controversially, that a resident permit system was inconsistent with Council policy.) Councillors have also suggested that a permit system can only be introduced in tandem with CPZs, and that Southwark Council is not able to access the DVLA database as a means of introducing a permit system that doesn’t rely on CPZs. Evidence from Phase 2 measures and other boroughs’ LTNs show that none of these reasons are substantiated.
Grounds for objection:
a) The Council has never substantiated its technical objections to camera-controlled timed restrictions on Court Lane and Calton Avenue (either or both), despite repeated requests. However, by putting camera-controlled timed restrictions (currently 8am to 10am and 3pm to 6pm) at other key Dulwich junctions, the Council has acknowledged that traffic in Dulwich is only a problem at peak hours, not 24/7; and that cameras controlling restricted access can be used on residential streets where there are no bus routes, and at signalised junctions where there are traffic lights.
b) The proposal put forward by the Dulwich Residents Association (DRA) to Cabinet on 20 October is an example of an area-wide scheme of timed restrictions that obviates the need for the permanent 24/7 closure of the junction. If the Council is prepared in principle to discuss this option, One Dulwich will take it back to its more than 1700 supporters and ask them to review it as a potential way forward.
c) The Council’s assertion that the junction is too busy to be camera-controlled is not supported by the Council’s own data. As referred to in point 2a), traffic data used in the OHSD consultation (see www.onedulwich.uk/fact-checker) gave the impression that traffic levels across the junction had increased in recent years, and that cyclists and pedestrians would only be safe if the junction were closed 24/7. The data was incorrect. Traffic had, in fact, slightly decreased rather than increased in recent years.
d) It is not reasonable to prevent access through the junction even for those who are normally exempt from restrictions – for example, Blue Badge holders and the Emergency Services.
e) Evidence from other boroughs, notably Hammersmith & Fulham, shows that it is possible to introduce camera-controlled permits without CPZs and that councils are able to access the DVLA database in order to issue permits to residents. (See SW6 Traffic reduction scheme FAQs: https://www.lbhf.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/sw6-traffic-reduction-scheme/sw6-traffic-reduction-scheme-frequently-asked-questions)
f) Given that other interventions in the vicinity are timed, not 24/7, the Council’s overall scheme for Dulwich Village and the surrounding area is likely to be improved if the road space currently out of use due to the 24/7 closures of Calton Avenue and Court Lane were utilised to allow a more efficient flow and distribution of traffic. Because of this, it seems unreasonable to persist with the current ETOs.
Request to Council:
g) To introduce restricted times at Dulwich Village junction instead of 24/7 closures, to bring the junction in line with timed restrictions at other junctions in the Dulwich Village area, using the DRA proposal as a basis for discussion with One Dulwich, the DRA and other groups in Dulwich that support this proposal.
Conclusion
In the light of these points, above, we ask the Council to modify the Experimental Traffic Orders that have closed Calton Avenue, Court Lane and Dulwich Village junction.