Loughborough Junction public space improvements - consultation begins

[teuchter]

Once one of the emergency services raised an official objection, the council would have exposed themselves to legal action if they had overridden it and subsequently someone died or was seriously injured owing to emergency service response being delayed.

I am no lawyer but in principle, if you were going to take legal action against Lambeth on that basis you'd have to show that they failed to take reasonable and proportionate action in response to objections from the emergency services. The court would have to look at the nature of the objections raised, and then examine Lambeth's response to those objections.

The fire service told Lambeth that they had personal reports from staff that there was increased congestion on CHL. They didn't quantify this or offer any data on the extent to which this was affecting their response times. What would be a reasonable response to this? It would be to look at the possible causes of this congestion, monitor it and ask the fire service to supply any further information they gathered, and it would be to consider this information at the point when they were deciding whether or not to pull the scheme.

At the point where Lambeth were deciding whether or not to pull the scheme, they knew that the congestion seemed to have eased significantly and the fire service had not supplied them with any further information. So, if the fire brigade's objection was based on a problem that Lambeth knew had significantly diminished since the point in time at whch that objection had been made, then would it be unreasonable or irresponsible of them to continue the scheme in spite of it? No it woudn't and I think a court would agree.

The fact is that all of the concerns* from the emergency services were related to congestion on CHL which was easing at the point in time when the decision was being made. All three of the emergency services said in their statements that 8 weeks was too short a time to draw conclusive evidence from. The police stated explicitly that they believed the transitional period was still in effect. Lambeth had identified that (a) the congestion had reduced and (b) one of the causes had been the traffic lights at HHR, an issue which had been resolved.

*with the exception of the issue of the temporary physical barriers placed across the roads at various places, and it seems from the email correspondence with the ambulance service that Lambeth had agreed these would be removed in any case.

 

[teuchter]

Does not clearly state, only says clearly... I think it's clearly a case of semantics.

(Maybe only moderate risk!!!, but that's ok according to you teuchter)

The ambulance service did not state in any form that lives were being put at serious risk. Stop lying.

 

[teuchter]

Of course, all this talk about lives having been put at risk during the closure ignores the fact that lives are being put at risk every single day as a result of motor traffic moving around London.



Every three days or so, someone is killed on London's roads. And every year about 2,000 people are seriously injured. Of those, pedestrians and cyclists outnumber car occupants by about 4 to 1.

Every scheme that tries to reduce the number of cars on the road, and make safer routes for pedestrians and cyclists, is an opportunity to reduce these figures, and this scheme was one of those opportunities.

If its opponents are going to argue that a death during this experiment would have been Lambeth's responsibility, then they themselves should accept the same kind of responsibility for the people who will die and be seriously injured in the future, as a result of efforts to reduce motor vehicle dominance in London being resisted.

That's not speculation - we know for a fact that motor traffic kills and seriously injures people.

 

[critical1]

The ambulance service did not state in any form that lives were being put at serious risk. Stop lying.

"It gives them GREAT CONCERN" is what the team leader stated in the report they handed into the Cllrs, see video from 10:19 onwards, if anything he states from his report is not life threatening, I'll eat my shoes...
As for lying I'm not a master of spin such as yourself...


Such as did you know your life is at risk even whilst your sleeping or warm weather!
The image you produced you state no source for it, but its probably correct for 2013.
So is this guy from tedX may enlighten you
Copenhagen's bicycle ambassador talks about how important the bicycle is for liveable cities and how bicycle helmets are threatening bicycle culture.



Five-year death risk,calculator
Risk Calculator - UbbLE
The researchers who developed the calculator with Sense About Science, a UK charity that works to help people make sense of scientific and medical claims, say it could improve health awareness and also in future be used by family doctors to identify high-risk potential patients.

Long working hours and risk of coronary heart disease
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)60295-1/abstract
The likely toll of long working hours is revealed in a major new study which shows that employees still at their desks into the evening run an increased risk of stroke – and the longer the hours they put in, the higher the risk.

The largest study conducted on the issue, carried out in three continents and led by scientists at University College London, found that those who work more than 55 hours a week have a 33% increased risk of stroke compared with those who work a 35- to 40-hour week. They also have a 13% increased risk of coronary heart disease.

Weekend deaths
7 September 2015

Patients admitted to hospital at the weekend are more likely to be sicker and have a higher risk of death, compared with those admitted during the week, finds an analysis published in The BMJ this week.

- See more at: Higher risk of death for patients admitted to NHS hospitals at the weekend

Warm weather deaths
Dr James Bennett, the lead author of the study from the MRC-PHE Centre for Environment and Health at Imperial College London, said: “It’s well known that warm weather can increase the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory deaths, especially in elderly people. Climate change is expected to raise average temperatures and increase temperature variability, so we can expect it to have effects on mortality even in countries like the UK with a temperate climate.”

Across England and Wales as a whole, a summer that is 2C warmer than average would be expected to cause around 1,550 extra deaths, the study found. Just over half would be in people aged over 85, and 62 per cent would be in women. The extra deaths would be distributed unevenly, with 95 out of 376 districts accounting for half of all deaths.

The effects of warm temperature were similar in urban and rural districts. The most vulnerable districts included deprived districts in London such as Hackney and Tower Hamlets, with the odds of dying more than doubling on very hot days like those of August 2003.

 

[critical1]

And then

The ambulance service did not state in any form that lives were being put at serious risk. Stop lying.

And then teuchter... this is very good visualisation to view deaths (all lives matter), but maybe its not good enough for you.
Mortality statistics: every cause of death in England and Wales
Mortality statistics: every cause of death in England and Wales, visualised | Datablog

Link to FULL image
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2011/10/28/Factfile_deaths_2_2011.pdf

 

[teuchter]

"It gives them GREAT CONCERN" is what the team leader stated in the report they handed into the Cllrs, see video from 10:19 onwards, if anything he states from his report is not life threatening, I'll eat my shoes...

You are now talking about the letter from the team leader at Oval Ambulance station. This appears to articulate his own concerns; it is not included or mentioned in the official submission from the London Ambulance Service.

Anyway, it is within the LJ Road madness "report" which is also in the appendices here.

Nowhere in his report does it say it gives them "great concern" as you claim. This is a minor point; I am just pointing out another instance of you either deliberately presenting false information, or failing to present accurate information.

Anyway, yes, in that (as far as I can tell unofficial, in as much as it is not acknowledged by the correspondence from central LAS management) report, concerns are raised about the closures. One concern is about the temporary barriers which I already mentioned - it appears Lambeth had already agreed to remove these. The other concerns about emergency response times relate mainly to the effect of increased congestion on CHL. That letter is dated 1st October, quite soon after implementation. Between the time that letter was written, and the point where the decision about pulling the scheme was being made, the congestion had reduced significantly. Their concerns were about something that appeared to be in the process of disappearing.

I'm not even going to start trying to figure out what point you're trying to make with your data-dump of assorted articles about risks and causes of death. I expect it is an incoherent one.

 

[critical1]

You are now talking about the letter from the team leader at Oval Ambulance station. This appears to articulate his own concerns; it is not included or mentioned in the official submission from the London Ambulance Service....

You obviously in your rush to reply ignored the video and that this report was a paper one which was handed over to Cllr Rachel Heywood and also to Cllr Jennifer Braithwaite, he also read from the report on the above video from 10:19 (which you conveniently ignore).
Lambeth in it's wisdom removed the barriers on a Sunday, the day before the article appeared in the Evening Standard, now that's what I call a reactive action it negates negative press.

But heyho if you gotta spin you have to spin...
Whether its on the video or not is not the point, sometimes documents are omitted as you know very well, such as in the call-in, you should be working for Lib Peck with your spin factor, not everything is as simple as you put it or maybe it is for you, remember the cobbled together info clearly states deaths from cycling on the top right sector of the image in RED stated as 96 deaths due to cycling to call it cobbled together is insensitive and dismissive, every life matters even those 96 you tried to ignore.

Anyway if you your not interested in the truth or bigger picture, or only your own version of the truth so be it, you have been corrected over your spin so many times.

Link to FULL image
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2011/10/28/Factfile_deaths_2_2011.pdf

 

[teuchter]

You obviously in your rush to reply ignored the video and that this report was a paper one which was handed over to Cllr Rachel Heywood and also to Cllr Jennifer Braithwaite, he also read from the report on the above video from 10:19 (which you conveniently ignore).

What have I ignored? What are you on about? The report read out in the video is the same one that was included in the LJRM submission is it not? The one that was handed in to the council and included in the appendices to Lambeth's final report, which I linked to above. The one that I was talking about, not ignoring.

not everything is as simple as you put it or maybe it is for you, remember the cobbled together info clearly states deaths from cycling on the top right sector of the image in RED stated as 96 deaths due to cycling to call it cobbled together is insensitive and dismissive, every life matters even those 96 you tried to ignore.

What point are you trying to make by quoting this figure of 96 cycling deaths? Why do you think I am ignoring cyclist deaths when I have been specifically been arguing that measures to reduce motor traffic in London can help reduce pedestrian and cyclist deaths on our roads?

It is a measure intended to help to reduce that number of 96 that you have been so vociferously opposing all through this thread.

And I suggest you also pay some attention to this part of the diagram. Respiratory disease is linked to air pollution and air pollution is linked to the number of motor vehicles on the road.



And the scheme you have been opposing is one that could have helped to reduce the number of motor vehicles on London's Roads. You have been opposing something that could help reduce the red circles and the blue circles on your diagram.

And your justification for that is speculation about the possible consequences of a temporary disruption to traffic flow for emergency response times. A disruption which we could see was starting to disappear. And we don't even have solid data that says what the effects really were, during that period of increased congestion. The emergency services themselves confirm that the time period was too short to draw conclusions. All we have is people like you making unsubstantiated claims on the internet and pretending they are based on objective fact. And the result of that is that something that could have improved people's health and saved lives has been scrapped, without us having the chance to make good decisions based on evidence instead of scaremongering and fabricated stories.

 

[critical1]

unsubstantiated claims on the internet and pretending they are based on objective fact.

Yet you use it to prove your point! about Respiratory diseases???

I would have thought
The Office for National Statistics is reputable,
The lancet is reputable,
Research project data from the UK Biobank: a large-scale national health resource is reputable,​

But heyho they are only claims on the internet and obviously not up to your proffessional standard. Where did you get your info from Borris's office?

I note your continued use of the words evidence throughout your campaign, which are of course totally unsubstantiated claims to have the roads closed, also your lack of compensation packages to local businesses in lou of closure or financial ruin, also to add you have not stated where your subjective and scientific anecdotal evidence is based upon...

It appears your so called scientific evidence is based of fabricated assumptions and anecdotal evidence, that is what makes your statements carry much more spin than anyone else.

Again you are the master of Spin, you and Lib Peck would lead a merry dance, maybe you should email her and do a partnership.

 

[bimble]

I am no lawyer but in principle, if you were going to take legal action against Lambeth on that basis you'd have to show that they failed to take reasonable and proportionate action in response to objections from the emergency services. The court would have to look at the nature of the objections raised, and then examine Lambeth's response to those objections.

Just going back to the question of why did Lambeth really decide to scrap the scheme after 3 months ..

I think it may have had something to do with the fact that two barristers took it upon themselves -independently, spontaneously - to send numerous objection emails on their headed paper, both looking quite closely at the consultation process.

Seeing what's just happened with Cressingham Gardens (Judicial Review victory announced this week against Lambeth on account of its flawed consultation process) I imagine that any mention of that word in relation to the consultation here, or in fact any close attention by legal experts, was taken pretty seriously at town hall. No idea what it cost them in legal fees but the loss of face expensive in itself.

eg) from the cressingham legal team's statement after victory on Tuesday; “This is a clear lesson in how not to conduct a consultation.."
Cressingham Gardens’ tenant wins High Court legal battle against Lambeth Council

Having said that though, the idiotic decision to stick those physical barriers across the roads to enforce the closures early on seems to me to have been a serious mistake: It took them about two weeks to remove them and that whole exercise was a stunningly stupid move for the credibility of a scheme which clearly said 'emergency vehicles will have full access through the area' etc. (I sent an email around asking about this on 18th sept and go no answer from anyone at all ever).
Even though the police did not issue a formal statement saying they wanted the experiment to end, I know that Chief Inspector Roy Smith was appalled when he saw the roadblocks and let the council know his thoughts at that time.
Anyway, that whole embarrassing episode surely did not help the council's case or its confidence.

 

[Aeryn]

The giant palm trees on Padfield Road are still there. Does anyone know who installed them? They don't look very official (and cars still just mount the pavement to get past them).

If they are going to stay in place, the council could do with putting some signage up - I saw at least two cars that had driven straight into them (yes the drivers probably took the corner too fast, but one does not generally expect to find a grove of unilluminated palm trees obstructing the carriageway). Maybe they could be replaced with a normal barrier (with reflective strips, etc).

 

[bimble]

The giant palm trees on Padfield Road are still there. Does anyone know who installed them? They don't look very official (and cars still just mount the pavement to get past them).

If they are going to stay in place, the council could do with putting some signage up - I saw at least two cars that had driven straight into them (yes the drivers probably took the corner too fast, but one does not generally expect to find a grove of unilluminated palm trees obstructing the carriageway). Maybe they could be replaced with a normal barrier (with reflective strips, etc).

You should get in touch with the powers that be - they have funds to improve these things and say they want input into what to do. Not sure but you could try JBrathwaite@lambeth.gov.uk & maybe GWright@lambeth.gov.uk

 

[critical1]

You should get in touch with the powers that be - they have funds to improve these things and say they want input into what to do. Not sure but you could try JBrathwaite@lambeth.gov.uk & maybe GWright@lambeth.gov.uk

Yes get in touch and ask them what is this New Experimental Road Closure about? As they evidently have not consulted anyone about it as yet!

It will be interesting to hear the reply.

 

[bimble]

Yes get in touch and ask them what is this New Experimental Road Closure about?

Do you know why those two closures were kept ? It's a bit surreal down there at the padfield palm trees, just loads of car repair garages one cafe and those 3 giant plant pots.

 

[critical1]

Yes, do you know why those two closures were kept ? It's a bit surreal down there at the pad field palm trees, 100% car repair one cafe and those 3 giant plant pots.

All I know is that Cllr Braithwaite announced that Calai St and Padfield Rd are the start of a new "New Experimental Road Closure" but as to why, there has been nothing said!

 

[teuchter]

You lot haven't even bothered to read the report, have you. Quelle surprise.

 

[bimble]

You lot haven't even bothered to read the report, have you. Quelle surprise.

It just said Padfield street was the 'least controversial" closure. It's also the only one with plant pots..
"You lot" ?

 

[Beasley]

Meanwhile, Lambeth has something new for us to argue about:

www.lambeth.gov.uk/consultations/ruskin-park-to-kennington-park-greenway-phase-1

 

[irf520]

Meanwhile, Lambeth has something new for us to argue about:

www.lambeth.gov.uk/consultations/ruskin-park-to-kennington-park-greenway-phase-1

Well at least it doesn't involve closing any roads. Just a few more pointless kerb build outs. I especially like the one opposite Wickwood Street - I wonder if the lorries in and out of there will be able to get round the corner after they've narrowed it?

Can they really not find anything more important to spend scarce funds on than this stuff?

 

[critical1]

You lot haven't even bothered to read the report, have you. Quelle surprise.

Pot calling itself..

 

[bimble]

Meanwhile, Lambeth has something new for us to argue about:
www.lambeth.gov.uk/consultations/ruskin-park-to-kennington-park-greenway-phase-1

Never even knew I live right next to 'Foreign Street' !
Extremely mild little measures here fas I can tell, ways of spending the TFL money that they need to spend.
The only practical problem I can see is with the proposed curb buildout in Gordon Grove, very close to the scrapyard entrance: This street is already very narrow for the large lorries that have to use it.

 

[critical1]

Never even knew I live right next to 'Foreign Street' !
Extremely mild little measures here fas I can tell, ways of spending the TFL money that they need to spend.
The only practical problem I can see is with the proposed curb buildout in Gordon Grove, very close to the scrapyard entrance: This street is already very narrow for the large lorries that have to use it.

They don't mention improved lighting, it's a real issue around Gordon Grove/Elam Pk, not the park itself as its closed in the evenings but the surrounding area is very dimly lit, I suppose the new lighting from the street signs may help a bit.

As a cycle route, it's not one I would personally use...

 

[bimble]

They don't mention improved lighting, it's a real issue around Gordon Grove/Elam Pk, not the park itself as its closed in the evenings but the surrounding area is very dimly lit, I suppose the new lighting from the street signs may help a bit.
As a cycle route, it's not one I would personally use...

It is a little bit dickensian just here when walking home at night down Gordon grove, under the railway track and all but got to confess i kind of like it.
I've heard stories about this spot as a once popular location for dodgy dealings but I've never once had a problem, or even seen anyone hanging out in an antisocial manner.
Personally I have a pet hate for light pollution, unnecessary lighting making the night sky bright orange.
Gloomy is good.

 

[bimble]

Here's a bit of fun for the modal shifters and statisticians amongst us ( teuchter )
Little article in Graun today by someone who has done his time at the side of the road..
Cycling on Vauxhall Bridge: a 'liar' claim and a few damned statistics

 

[irf520]

Here's a bit of fun for the modal shifters and statisticians amongst us ( teuchter )
Little article in Graun today by someone who has done his time at the side of the road..
Cycling on Vauxhall Bridge: a 'liar' claim and a few damned statistics

I started using Vauxhall Bridge again after a long hiatus about 4 weeks ago. I think they've done a reasonable job with the road layout - still 2 lanes + bus lane northbound over the bridge, now 2 lanes with no bus lane southbound. This is actually better than it was before. Before you had 2 lanes + bus lane going south, but the bus lane was on the right and the left lane was always occupied by cyclists, so you were effectively down to one lane. Going over the bridge at around 0620 northbound or around 2000 southbound, all seems OK ... until one day last week I reached there just before 1800 and it took me 15 minutes to get from the end of Lupus Street to Vauxhall Bridge Road (about 100 yards). They've bolloxed up the traffic lights so that whenever the light goes green for traffic coming from Lupus St, there is no room for anyone to actually get out (about one car every other cycle of the lights).

 

[bimble]

Far too many numbers in there irf520

 

[irf520]

Here's a bit of fun for the modal shifters and statisticians amongst us ( teuchter )
Little article in Graun today by someone who has done his time at the side of the road..
Cycling on Vauxhall Bridge: a 'liar' claim and a few damned statistics

It doesn't surprise me that a large number of cyclists are still riding on the road. There are a couple of videos on youtube of people riding the new cycle route for the first time and in the comments there are complaints about the places where you have to cross the road.

 

[irf520]

Far too many numbers in there irf520

Note to self - don't use 24 hour clock ...

 

[irf520]

At least there are no statistics. You can prove anything with statistics ...

 

[bimble]

At least there are no statistics. You can prove anything with statistics ...

68% of residents..