Brixton Liveable Neighbourhood and LTN schemes - improvements for pedestrians and cyclists

[chowce5382]

chowce5382 . You mention a vast number of FOIs, were you the person who asked the council about the use of bike couriers (pedalme) to deliver food parcels?

Afraid not, I didn't issue that one.

 

[edcraw]

Any comments on your campaign’s Twitter feed?

 

[chowce5382]

I'm not a member of the LCC, nor do I want to try to speak for them or even position myself as defending them. However I have just now gone to look at what their Constitution says, and it says their objectives are:

3. Objects of the Company
3.1 The objects for which the Company is established are:-
to promote cycling for the public benefit in the United Kingdom as a means of
furthering the following charitable purposes:
3.1.1 the promotion of public health,
3.1.2 the promotion of healthy recreation in the interests of social welfare,
3.1.3 the promotion of public safety, particularly on the highways,
3.1.4 the relief of the needs of people with mental and physical disabilities,
3.1.5 the promotion of the conservation and protection of the environment and
3.1.6 the advancement of education
by whatever means the Board think fit, including the provision of cycling facilities,
services, training, educational activities, and lobbying and campaigning in matters
relating to cycling and other forms of transport.


On the other hand you seem to be saying you've gone to their website, looked at some pictures on it, decided that what people in the pictures are wearing is of significance, and maybe looked at the gender and ethnicity of some of the people involved. Having gathered this information about who is visibly involved, you have made a judgement about their motives and interests (and that they are contrary to their Constitution).

Then you've further extrapolated that because they were involved as consultants to Lambeth, Lambeth has implemented LTNs that further the interests of this one campaign group.

Is that about right?

Yup, I looked at their board and made that deduction. There was also an FOI on the make-up of their membership that stated the same which is why I made that statement.

I also looked at what you said above but, given their political lobbying, it was difficult to see how they could square that with the rules that they are not allowed to promote anything which could harm others under their foundation as a charity.

 

[BigTom]

Lycra-clad comment:

Given the above preponderance of LCC involved in the decision making and being paid for by the council and the above issues whereby vulnerable groups have been deliberately excluded, it seemed that LCC as a group (who has a membership which is the equivalent of 0.001% of London) seemed that they might be the main lobby group. I looked on the website and the board and saw that it was overwhelmingly white and middle-class. They also happened to be in lycra.

I've had a look around LCC's website and I can't find a single picutre featuring anyone with lycra.
This is their board of trustees:

Chair/HR Committee Co Chair: Terry Patterson

Vice Chair: Eilidh Murray

Treasurer: Simon Clark

HR Committee Chair: Christian Wolmar

Chair Business Committee/HR Committee Co-Chair: James Heath

Co-Chair Policy Forum: Pearl Ahrens

Co-Chair Policy Forum: Sylvia Gauthereau

Co-Chair CAMS: Aidan Chisholm

HR Committee Co-Chair, C&AM Co-Chair: Kris Sangani

Trustee: Stuart Kightley

Trustee: Sarah Strong

11 trustees, 3 or 4 women from the names. Please can you tell us how you judge people's class from the names on the website?



This is their team - again I have no idea how you judge class from looking at this. By name, I'd say mostly men but a reasonable number of women (6/19 is my guess from names) and their CEO isn't white.

I'm not in London* but LCC are one of Cycling UKs groups and they are really about campaigning for ordinary cycling, not sports cycling. If they are anything like the Birmingham Cycling campaign group in their focus it's all about decent safe infrastructure that allows people other than fit young men to ride feeling safe, and broadening cycling out beyond that lycra-clad stereotype.
I'm genuinely curious how you looked at their website and come to the conclusion you have.

*I live in Kings Heath in Birmingham where an LTN has been put in place using the same legislation and with the same arguments, hence I watch this thread out of interest.

 

[sleaterkinney]

The irony about the Lycra clad comment is that’s exactly what LTNs are trying to change - make active travel more accessible to all.

 

[liquidindian]

I've got nothing to do with LCC, but find the conspiracies around them hilarious. Did you know that someone with an academic interest in active travel also has a more general interest in active travel? Spooky, man.

Also, nice mention of the whole racist tweets thing, it's good to know you do think that an entire campaign group should be judged and damned on the worst of its social media.

 

[BigTom]

Yup, I looked at their board and made that deduction. There was also an FOI on the make-up of their membership that stated the same which is why I made that statement.

I also looked at what you said above but, given their political lobbying, it was difficult to see how they could square that with the rules that they are not allowed to promote anything which could harm others under their foundation as a charity.

Have you got a link to that FoI answer? FoI is only really applicable to public bodies and I can't find such an FoI request from google or whatdotheyknow.com and I'm curious. Birmingham cycling campaign doesn't ask any demographic information when joining and I wonder why LCC does.

 

[sleaterkinney]

Yup, I looked at their board and made that deduction. There was also an FOI on the make-up of their membership that stated the same which is why I made that statement.

I also looked at what you said above but, given their political lobbying, it was difficult to see how they could square that with the rules that they are not allowed to promote anything which could harm others under their foundation as a charity.

Did you FOI a cycling charity?. How many FOIs have you done in relation to this?

 

[teuchter]

Which bits of their political lobbying are problematic?

Yup, I looked at their board and made that deduction. There was also an FOI on the make-up of their membership that stated the same which is why I made that statement.

I also looked at what you said above but, given their political lobbying, it was difficult to see how they could square that with the rules that they are not allowed to promote anything which could harm others under their foundation as a charity

 

[Winot]

The irony about the Lycra clad comment is that’s exactly what LTNs are trying to change - make active travel more accessible to all.

YES THIS FFS

 

[teuchter]

In any case, even if arguments can be made that certain groups are biased or over represented, surely you also have to be able to give some kind of plausible explanation as to how the specific thing actually implemented has such selective benefits.

How does it benefit male cyclists but not female cyclists?
How does it benefit white cyclists but not cyclists of any other ethnicity?
How does it benefit cyclists wearing lycra but not cyclists who aren't wearing lycra?
How does it benefit middle class cyclists but not middle class pedestrians or indeed any pedestrians or anyone using any other form of transport?


These are all questions that go well outside the scope of simply seeking to protect the needs of disabled people (which no-one here is going to have a problem with).

 

[chowce5382]

Which bits of their political lobbying are problematic?

The part of their political lobbying I take issue with is that policies they espouse have an adverse impact on vulnerable people. I have less on an issue with LCC than I do with the fact that Lambeth have overwhelmingly based their finding on LCC information without paying attention to or asking, other groups.

I completely accept that the lycra-clad comment was throwaway and referred to a group who have already admitted that this was an issue with their current membership so was frankly a bit pointless and added nothing of value.

Does anyone have anything to say about the main section where the council deliberately mislead in their original EQIA? Whilst i completely get that there is a pro and anti-element on here and we will view this though that prism, I a bit surprised that since putting up that long post, all the questions are about lycra and LCC rather than about what looks like gross mismanagement by our council or, at worse, unlawful behavior. Or is there a blind-spot for as regards this?

 

[thebackrow]

Dear Teuchter, Ed & Liquidindian

To address your points in turn.

My use of Lycra-Clad and Ideological:

This comes from a vast number of FOIs and close scrutiny on some of the work done pre-covid towards the LTNs.
.... I then looked further to find that, of all the groups who had representation on Lambeth council and who were actually being paid as a specialist transport consultant by the council,...). Again, it seemed strange to me that, of all the groups they arsked for input and were indeed willing to pay for that input, it was LCC.

This seemed an odd claim so I searched the FOIs on “What do they know”.

This one seems to be the query from OneLambeths Kelly Shockley and it doesn’t support what you are saying.

Response.pdf

www.whatdotheyknow.com

 

[chowce5382]

In any case, even if arguments can be made that certain groups are biased or over represented, surely you also have to be able to give some kind of plausible explanation as to how the specific thing actually implemented has such selective benefits.

How does it benefit male cyclists but not female cyclists?
How does it benefit white cyclists but not cyclists of any other ethnicity?
How does it benefit cyclists wearing lycra but not cyclists who aren't wearing lycra?
How does it benefit middle class cyclists but not middle class pedestrians or indeed any pedestrians or anyone using any other form of transport?


These are all questions that go well outside the scope of simply seeking to protect the needs of disabled people (which no-one here is going to have a problem with).

Part fo this goes towards

This seemed an odd claim so I searched the FOIs on “What do they know”.

This one seems to be the query from OneLambeths Kelly Shockley and it doesn’t support what you are saying.

View attachment 272515

Response.pdf

www.whatdotheyknow.com

I haven't said that they gave them money. I said that, of all the groups, they were the only group to have paid representation on their transport committee which made the decision around LTN and that they therefore did not give the same access to other groups when implementing their policy.

 

[chowce5382]

In any case, even if arguments can be made that certain groups are biased or over represented, surely you also have to be able to give some kind of plausible explanation as to how the specific thing actually implemented has such selective benefits.

How does it benefit male cyclists but not female cyclists?
How does it benefit white cyclists but not cyclists of any other ethnicity?
How does it benefit cyclists wearing lycra but not cyclists who aren't wearing lycra?
How does it benefit middle class cyclists but not middle class pedestrians or indeed any pedestrians or anyone using any other form of transport?


These are all questions that go well outside the scope of simply seeking to protect the needs of disabled people (which no-one here is going to have a problem with).

But everyone seems to be focused on the lycra comment but has nothing to say about how our council made that decision and published documents to back up the position and exclude those vulnerable people. I've just said above the lyrca comment added nothing and I agree was misplaced

 

[teuchter]

The part of their political lobbying I take issue with is that policies they espouse have an adverse impact on vulnerable people. I have less on an issue with LCC than I do with the fact that Lambeth have overwhelmingly based their finding on LCC information without paying attention to or asking, other groups.

I completely accept that the lycra-clad comment was throwaway and referred to a group who have already admitted that this was an issue with their current membership so was frankly a bit pointless and added nothing of value.

Does anyone have anything to say about the main section where the council deliberately mislead in their original EQIA? Whilst i completely get that there is a pro and anti-element on here and we will view this though that prism, I a bit surprised that since putting up that long post, all the questions are about lycra and LCC rather than about what looks like gross mismanagement by our council or, at worse, unlawful behavior. Or is there a blind-spot for as regards this?

There's already quite a few posts from those of us on the 'pro' side of the prism saying that if the court case reveals significant negligence by Lambeth in that regard, then it's right that it should be brought up and it's right that appropriate modifications to the schemes are made, if needed. I already said I'd reserve my opinion for now, because you can only tell us your interpretation of the story and we're about to have a court case where all this is examined.

Your long post was in response to ones that were asking specifically about the reasoning behind your comments at the protest gathering because they seemed to go beyond the narrow focus you say you are interested in.

Regarding what you say about LCC lobbying - looks rather like a circular argument to me. You have a problem with that group being involved with lobbying for a certain type of intervention, because you already have a problem with that certain type of intervention.

 

[sleaterkinney]

But everyone seems to be focused on the lycra comment but has nothing to say about how our council made that decision and published documents to back up the position and exclude those vulnerable people. I've just said above the lyrca comment added nothing and I agree was misplaced

It’s not some throwaway comment. It gives an insight into where you’re coming from.

 

[teuchter]

It's not just the lycra comment. It's the comment that the LTNs only benefit white middle class male cyclists.

You are saying that the schemes are inherently racist, sexist and class-descriminatory. These are fairly serious things to suggest.

 

[Torpid Scorpion]

Indeed - here are the last 4 tweets from the OneLambeth Justice account. It’s bloody weird and think fair to question Charlie’s motives when this is the public face of his campaign.

View attachment 272450View attachment 272451
View attachment 272452View attachment 272453

Where’s the justice in those tweets, chowce5382 ?

I fully support your right to bring the case but wish you had chosen one of the many other issues that you could have challenged the council on regarding proper consultation and equalities; cressingham and hondo come to mind…and also that you’d not chosen whats on display above as your fellow travellers. Have you no shame?

 

[edcraw]

I completely accept that the lycra-clad comment was throwaway and referred to a group who have already admitted that this was an issue with their current membership so was frankly a bit pointless and added nothing of value.

I'm pretty sure you know what value it was adding - very much along the same line's as your campaign's Twitter feed which you seem to want to ignore.

 

[chowce5382]

There's already quite a few posts from those of us on the 'pro' side of the prism saying that if the court case reveals significant negligence by Lambeth in that regard, then it's right that it should be brought up and it's right that appropriate modifications to the schemes are made, if needed. I already said I'd reserve my opinion for now, because you can only tell us your interpretation of the story and we're about to have a court case where all this is examined.

Your long post was in response to ones that were asking specifically about the reasoning behind your comments at the protest gathering because they seemed to go beyond the narrow focus you say you are interested in.

Regarding what you say about LCC lobbying - looks rather like a circular argument to me. You have a problem with that group being involved with lobbying for a certain type of intervention, because you already have a problem with that certain type of intervention.

Nope, I didn't ever have a probelm with LTNs. The issue arose as a result of the way in which they were implemented and the excessive influence of one group in formulating the policy over any other groups, I didn't think this was right. As I've said, I live in the middle of an LTN and don't have a car. It's nice in here

 

[Jeanette Moo]

Some grade A deflection going on. The council incompetence was interesting.

Gives detailed info on council equality impacts and groups they spoke to......but.....

BUT THEY SAID MEAN THINGS
ANSWER FOR IT

 

[chowce5382]

Where’s the justice in those tweets, chowce5382 ?

I fully support your right to bring the case but wish you had chosen one of the many other issues that you could have challenged the council on regarding proper consultation and equalities; cressingham and hondo come to mind…and also that you’d not chosen whats on display above as your fellow travellers. Have you no shame?

So many people are supporting the Hondo and Cressingham cases and fighting for those tooth and nail. I support them wholeheartedly and hope the council backs down but they don't need another person coming along especially when they have people who are fulfilling a similar function.

 

[teuchter]

Nope, I didn't ever have a probelm with LTNs.

Ok, you are saying you don't have a problem with LTNs, only the way Lambeth has implemented them. But you also said you have problems with policies the LCC espouse. So what are they, those policies they espouse? Do the LCC espouse improperly implemented LTNs?

 

[Torpid Scorpion]

So many people are supporting the Hondo and Cressingham cases and fighting for those tooth and nail. I support them wholeheartedly and hope the council backs down but they don't need another person coming along especially when they have people who are fulfilling a similar function.

Thanks, thats a very clear answer to the one question posed.

 

[liquidindian]

This EQIA stated that the impact for all disabled people in Lambeth would be positive. This statement was linked to some underlying research to back up this assertion so I got hold of this research. Having read it through I saw that the research was undertaken about 15 years ago and encompassed 24 disabled people based up in the North-East of England. This group of people did not live in or anywhere near to an LTN so I thought it was strange that this was the only piece of research that backed-up up this assertion. When I read through it further I found that the subjects used for this study were people who suffered from "mild to moderate learning difficulties". This is an important sub-set of disabled people, however, the thing that jumped out was that the council had formulated a policy, signed off a vital document that categorically stated that an LTN would be beneficial for all disabled people, and then linked it to an underlying piece of research which deliberately excluded anyone who was physically disabled in relation to a policy which promotes physical transport and then stated it would be positive for those people.

This refers to a citation to back up the statement disabled people may suffer from higher mortality rates than the general population, potentially reflecting exclusion from active travel / lifestyles, not what's being claimed here. The research is titled Primary and secondary barriers to physically active healthy lifestyles for adults with learning disabilities. It's nothing to do with living near an LTN because that's not the point. You're right that it focuses on a subset of disability but I don't think it's controversial to suggest that people with a physical disability would face more barriers to active travel than those people without a physical disability. Seems pretty self-evident. That people with learning disabilities would face barriers is less obvious.

I honestly don't know what a good EQIA looks like, but the claim that the whole thing is underpinned by this piece of research isn't true.

Also it looks like Lambeth consulted Wheels for Wellbeing, a charity based in Brixton (I think) and there's mention of a "stakeholder meeting" with disabled residents and the feedback received.

 

[thebackrow]

Part fo this goes towards

I haven't said that they gave them money.

I don’t know if, to use your own phraseology, you’re incompetent or don’t care (about accuracy) but that’s exactly what you said. Twice. Which doesn’t bode well for the accuracy of your other claims and you should probably edit your post to be truthful.

you said:
“Again, it seemed strange to me that, of all the groups [Lambeth] arsked for input and were indeed willing to pay for that input, it was LCC”
“This seemed the most likely to me, given that [Lambeth] had paid someone from LCC to be their consultant”

 

[chowce5382]

Ok, you are saying you don't have a problem with LTNs, only the way Lambeth has implemented them. But you also said you have problems with policies the LCC espouse. So what are they, those policies they espouse? Do the LCC espouse improperly implemented LTNs?

Yes because they were part of the implementation process and were being paid by the council whilst the decisions were being made. By having that role they went from being another interested group to be one which was able to influence travel policy over and above what a normal charity would. With that influence comes increased responsibility to ensure that you are giving the full picture. In that respect, my issue is more with the council than LCC although I would say that, once people were paid to help formulate policy, a conflict of interest arose. This isn't a singular issue with Lambeth as it has been replicated across other councils.

 

[chowce5382]

This refers to a citation to back up the statement disabled people may suffer from higher mortality rates than the general population, potentially reflecting exclusion from active travel / lifestyles, not what's being claimed here. The research is titled Primary and secondary barriers to physically active healthy lifestyles for adults with learning disabilities. It's nothing to do with living near an LTN because that's not the point. You're right that it focuses on a subset of disability but I don't think it's controversial to suggest that people with a physical disability would face more barriers to active travel than those people without a physical disability. Seems pretty self-evident. That people with learning disabilities would face barriers is less obvious.

I honestly don't know what a good EQIA looks like, but the claim that the whole thing is underpinned by this piece of research isn't true.

Also it looks like Lambeth consulted Wheels for Wellbeing, a charity based in Brixton (I think) and there's mention of a "stakeholder meeting" with disabled residents and the feedback received.

Firstly an EQIA should be related to the thing it is referencing. If the EQIA is about LTNS then the research should be on LTNs. Speaking in generalities isn't enough and referencing something which is very general doesn't meet the high bar required.

Secondly, my issue is not with the research or with the findings that "people with a physical disability would face more barriers to active travel". thats is understandable. Its that the finding were that LTNs would be positive for all disabled people and that was the verdict without showing how they managed to get there or the studies on which they based that finding. You'd expect to see granular detail about how they got there, sub-sets etc.

 

[edcraw]

Calling Claire Holland a dictator again - has she just become one since being elected council leader or was she one before?