Greenwich's LTN: Warnings before fines as low

Most through traffic in streets east and west of Greenwich Park is now barred between 7am-10am and 3-7pm on weekdays. Buses, taxis, minicabs, cyclists and pedestrians will not be affected while there are a range of exemptions.

Greenwich Council says there will be be a three-week grace period between November 27 and December 17 for drivers to familiarise themselves with the new restrictions, during which warning letters will be sent rather than the £130 penalty charge notices.

But signs and cameras only began to appear on Tuesday, with some streets having neither as the new rules were introduced. No warning signs at the edges of the low-traffic zone appeared to have been installed either.

The council told The Greenwich Wire on Tuesday evening that the area would be fully signed within the three-week grace period. But emails telling locals this only went out on Wednesday morning, three hours after the scheme had been introduced.

With Storm Connell still sweeping across London at 7am, there may have been better mornings to suggest locals take to bicycles rather than their cars.

For many drivers, the measures will have come as a surprise. Most simply ignored the new signs, where they had been put in place. Some slowed down and hesitated before deciding to plough on, others opted to perform awkward U-turns before diverting down smaller side streets to find another route.

Sat-navs were still suggesting routes such as Maze Hill to drivers, although it was suggesting they avoid Point Hill, which had none of its promised road-closure signs in place.

The Greenwich Wire watched traffic at Westcombe Hill and Crooms Hill, where locals had stopped to take in the spectacle. At Crooms Hill, one man said the traffic had simply been “hooty”. Queues built up in their regular spots at Maze Hill and Vanbrugh Hill, as if the scheme had not been introduced.

Traffic did built up later in the morning as drivers sought to avoid delays on the Blackwall Tunnel approach road, but with no signage warning of restrictions many used Westcombe Hill, while the A2 across Blackheath was also slow-moving.

Greenwich Council has been asked why the signage is running late and what it has done to ensure sat-navs warn drivers of the closures.

A consultation into the scheme – officially called a “neighbourhood management scheme” by the council – has opened at greenersafergreenwich.commonplace.is.

Read on for a more detailed look at the ins and outs of what is happening…

What’s happening?

From Wednesday November 27, most drivers will no longer be able to travel all the way along streets west and east of Greenwich Park between 7am-10am and 3pm-7pm on weekdays. Those streets include Point Hill, Crooms Hill, Maze Hill, Vanbrugh Hill and Westcombe Hill.

All streets will still be accessible by car or van, but some ways through will no longer be allowed. Cameras will be used to enforce the blocks.

Buses, cyclists and pedestrians will be able to use the streets as normal, as will drivers using vehicles that have been exempted.

What streets are affected?

West of Greenwich Park:

Crooms Hill (junction with Burney Street) – Camera-enforced traffic filter

Circus Street (junction with Royal Hill) – Camera-enforced traffic filter

Royal Hill (junction with Royal Place) – Camera-enforced traffic filter

Royal Hill (junction with Point Hill) – Camera-enforced traffic filter

Winforton Street (junction with Point Hill) – Camera-enforced traffic filter

Maidenstone Hill (junction with Point Hill) – Camera-enforced traffic filter

Lindsell Street (junction with Greenwich South Street) – no entry (into Lindsell Street)

East of Greenwich Park:

Westcombe Hill (junction with Station Crescent) – bus gate

Halstow Road – Camera-enforced traffic filter

Vanbrugh Hill (junction with Dinsdale Road) – bus gate

Maze Hill (junction with Tom Smith Close) – Camera-enforced traffic filter

St Johns Park (junction with Vanbrugh Park) – Camera-enforced traffic filter

Langton Way (junction with Old Dover Road) – Camera-enforced traffic filter

There are maps of the scheme and how to access affected roads.

Who’s exempted?

Buses, black taxis and minicabs (including Uber) will be exempted. Blue badge holders will need to apply for an exemption, as will organisations which hold blue badges. Other residents will also be able to apply for an exemption based on special circumstances – chiefly, if you or a child you’re travelling with has a chronic health condition that means sitting in a car on a longer journey causes additional distress.

To apply, visit the Greenwich Council website.

Is this permanent?

The restrictions are for up to 18 months and are being carried out as part of an experimental traffic order. A consultation will be held during the 18-month period to assess how things are going before a final decision is made.

What are the fines?

Drivers who go through the cameras without permission once the grace period is over face getting a £130 penalty charge notice – reduced to £65 if paid within 14 days.

Where does the money go?

The income helps fund traffic and parking services, with any excess going towards Greenwich’s contribution to the Freedom Pass scheme.

How much is this costing?

A council report in March estimated the cost of the trial as £220,000. The scheme is part of a broader £3.1 million transport strategy – £2.1 million of which comes from TfL and £1 million from the council’s own coffers.

Why is this happening?

To put it bluntly, traffic in Greenwich has been a mess for decades. Greenwich is adjacent to the river, restricting alternative routes, and is close to areas with relatively poor public transport options compared with the rest of London.

Parts of west Greenwich were cut off to through traffic decades ago using barriers, while a series of pinch-points were installed in the 1970s to stop lorries using north-south roads as cut-throughs.

But the rise of sat-navs led to a rise in drivers using these roads as cut-throughs to avoid the A2, creating new traffic jams, while residents reported a rise in antisocial behaviour from drivers. Effectively, councils across the country have lost control of their streets to tech giants – for them, LTNs are a method of redressing the balance.

Greenwich Council had originally proposed a permanent ban on through traffic in the area, but watered the scheme down to a rush-hour ban after a consultation, in which up to 79 per cent of respondents were opposed.

Averil Lekau, the council’s deputy leader, told The Greenwich Wire last week: “I’m proud to put my name next to what we’re trying to achieve,” she said. There’s no conspiracy. There’s no ‘war on motorists”. But, if we’re serious about cleaning up our air, about being carbon neutral and protecting our children’s lungs, then the answer cannot be ‘do nothing’.”

Haven’t we been here before?

Yes. In the late 2010s Greenwich Council put together plans to stop traffic using streets west of the park. These plans ended up being brought in during the coronavirus pandemic as a wider scheme – endorsed by TfL and the Conservative government – to stop a huge rise in traffic when capacity on public transport was limited.

At the same time, in a separate development, through traffic was banned from Greenwich Park – it had previously been allowed through the rush hour.

Residents in west Greenwich loved their quieter streets, but east of Greenwich Park, residents noted a surge in vehicles using streets like Vanbrugh Hill and Maze Hill. Meanwhile, Royal Parks refused the council’s requests to reopen the park to traffic.

Greenwich brought forward plans to introduce a low-traffic neighbourhood there too, but got cold feet before the 2022 council elections and the proposals were scrapped. The original west Greenwich LTN was scrapped too.

The new scheme is much weaker than the LTN that it replaces – only operating in weekday rush-hours and with a far wider range of exemptions. But it covers a far wider area.

What’s the evidence?

The evidence of the effectiveness of low-traffic neighbourhoods is mixed. The theory is that displaced traffic will find a completely different route or drivers will try a different mode of transport altogether (or simply not make that journey) – “traffic evaporation” – rather than squeeze down boundary roads.

A government-commissioned report found they were effective in reducing traffic within their boundaries, were not hampering emergency services and could be helping to cut crime.

But the researchers found a mixed picture on boundary roads and effects for disabled people, while it was hard to determine whether walking and cycling grew as a result of the measures.

What about those boundary roads?

The two main boundary roads – the A2 and A206 – have been bedevilled by traffic jams for decades. While planners hope traffic will take the A102 or just go another way altogether, residents in Charlton fear that they will instead use established cut-throughs such as Eastcombe Avenue and Victoria Way.

Greenwich Council has promised extra monitoring here and on the A2, where there are a number of housing estates both sides of Blackheath Hill.

Hasn’t traffic got worse anyway?

Depends who you speak to. Some capacity has been lost from the A206 following the introduction of a segregated cycle lane – particularly at the junction with Vanbrugh Hill.

While Transport for London found that traffic was moving roughly at pre-pandemic levels on the A206, it noted that the lack of capacity meant the road was more vulnerable to jams whenever there were incidents or roadworks, and that bus journeys had notably slowed down through Charlton on the approach to the Angerstein roundabout.

Where else could things go wrong?

If Transport for London finds that buses are being unacceptably delayed by the scheme, it may well call a halt to it – heavy bus delays helped lead to the watering-down of a Lewisham Council LTN in Lee and Hither Green in 2020, and to the shelving of a Lambeth Council scheme in Streatham earlier this year.

Users of the 53, 177, 188, 286, 386 and 422 buses could face the brunt of any problems – if those buses are regularly being turned around early, this could be a clue that something has gone wrong.

The surprisingly late start time of 7am is perhaps the most glaring weak spot – almost encouraging drivers to start a little earlier so they can beat both the LTN and the central London congestion charge, as well as, from the spring, the Blackwall and Silvertown tunnel toll. There is a risk of ugly scenes in some streets before the sun rises.

Vandalism has also affected efforts to tame traffic in recent years – such as in the outer London ULEZ extension – and could well be a factor in Greenwich.

What about the Silvertown Tunnel?

Rather surprisingly, this scheme has not been co-ordinated with the Silvertown Tunnel, which is due to open in the spring, adding a new road route across the Thames at the Greenwich Peninsula with simpler access to Canary Wharf and the City.

The effects of the tunnel’s opening may skew any assessment of the new scheme, just as the cycle lane and Greenwich Park traffic restrictions affected assessments of the old scheme.

At least in the short term, the new tunnel may relieve morning pressure on local streets by providing an alternative route to central London – so long as drivers are willing to pay the expected £4 peak-time fee for this and the Blackwall Tunnel – effectively shifting the problem elsewhere. But the toll could also send more traffic through Greenwich towards the Rotherhithe Tunnel or Tower Bridge if drivers are unwilling to pay.

In addition, the tunnel charge starts at 6am, an hour before the LTN begins, meaning many in the zone may wake to the sound of toll-dodging drivers lining up outside their homes.

Coming back is harder to predict – the new tunnel will send more traffic onto the A102 south of the river, where there are already regular evening queues. How many will drive into Greenwich town centre, or take convoluted routes through Charlton to avoid them, remains to be seen.

What if things go right?

Greenwich Council is likely to roll out more zones if these scheme is successful at discouraging rush-hour drivers. One location could be Kidbrooke Gardens, used as an A2-dodging cut-through between Kidbrooke Park Road and Blackheath Village.

In 2022 the council scrapped plans for a cycle scheme here which would have stopped through traffic; before that Lewisham Council had tried a scheme on its side of the border, but hit problems with a weak railway tunnel and limited access to the Morden College almshouses. These problems would have to be resolved – and cross-boundary co-operation improve – before that scheme could return.

There are also areas in the south of the borough where residents are petitioning for some form of restrictions: these include West Hallowes in Mottingham, used as a cut-through from Chislehurst to the A20, and Cedarhurst Drive in Eltham, between the South Circular Road and Eltham Road.

Who do I do I write to?

A consultation opens on Wednesday at greenersafergreenwich.commonplace.is. You can contact local councillors and your MP via writetothem.com.