A newly released Department for Transport (DfT) document has confirmed that officials had to tackle ministerial misconceptions about traffic calming measures included in a ‘proposed’ review of low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs).
The advice to ministers about the proposed review was still being delivered even after Rishi Sunak publicly claimed to have ‘ordered’ the investigation.
A briefing paper drawn up last August by senior DfT official Anthony Ferguson confirms that officials were battling to explain to ministers that ‘a low traffic neighbourhood is not actually really a thing’ - as first reported by Highways magazine.
The document was uncovered as part of a legal challenge against the Government’s retreat from supporting active travel in favour of pro-driver measures, culminating in the withdrawal of guidance that referenced LTNs and the launch of the ‘Plan for Drivers’ in October.
In an interview in the Sunday Telegraph in late July, Mr Sunak claimed to have ‘ordered' a review of LTNs, but the DfT document dated 1 August reveals that the department was already looking into active travel schemes and that No 10 had asked for more detail, ‘in the context of the PM’s proposed review of LTNs’.
Mr Ferguson advised that ‘LTNs are not strictly defined’ and that similar traffic management restrictions have been in place across the country for decades, ‘with thousands of examples’.
He added that ‘Government cannot require local authorities to remove existing LTNs’.
However, the Plan for Drivers subsequently stated that ‘as part of the ongoing review into low traffic neighbourhoods, the government will also consider measures for existing anti-driver policies that did not secure local consent’.
It added: ‘The plans also aim to stop councils implementing so called “15-minute cities”, by consulting on ways to prevent schemes which aggressively restrict where people can drive.’
Transport secretary Mark Harper told the Conservative Party conference that ‘what we shouldn’t tolerate is the idea that local councils can decide how often you go to the shops’ – something that no council had proposed implementing.
The legal case has seen Ecotricity founder Dale Vince OBE join forces with campaigners at Transport Action Network (TAN) to challenge the withdrawal of guidance to local authorities under the Traffic Management Act 2004.
The statutory Network Management to Support Active Travel guidance was introduced in 2020 and updated in 2022 to build on and embed increases in walking and cycling.
However, it was withdrawn last October when the Government published the ‘Plan for Drivers’, which stated that ministers had ‘withdrawn COVID-19-era guidance, which referenced LTNs as one measure local authorities should consider’.
TAN pointed out that the guidance contained only one reference to LTNs, with the majority of the guidance addressing other active travel measures like school streets, cycle lanes and pedestrian zones.
The group initially threatened Mr Harper with a legal challenge over the cancellation of the guidance but did not have the funding to take the case to court, leading to Mr Vince taking up the legal claim.
Mr Vince said: ‘The Government is waging another crazed culture war, this time against safer, healthier streets. Walking and cycling are a cost-effective way of reducing air pollution and the health impact that has, it also helps tackle the climate crisis so why cut it? This just doesn’t make any sense, other than as another culture war virtue signal.’
The DfT told the Guardian that it could not comment on legal action, adding that while it is important that people who choose to walk and cycle can do so safely, ‘this should not come at the cost of people who rely on cars’.
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