Bangladeshi Press Club, 19th September 2023 6pm
Speakers
– Dr Chinedu Nwokoro, consultant in paediatric respiratory medicine, Royal London Hospital and General Practitioner
– Simon Ramsay, head teacher at Oaklands School, which has 1000 students and two sites within the Liveable Streets scheme
– Abu Miah, teacher at Oaklands School
Background and summary
– The Liveable Streets scheme has been in place since summer 2021
– The scheme keeps all roads open to cars but makes both walking and cycling safer and easier through more cycle lanes, quieter roads and wider pavements.
– Three consultations (one before the scheme and two after in 2022 and 2023) have been held with residents. All have shown that residents support the scheme.
– The last two consultations only gave residents the option to reverse the scheme entirely (option 1) or keep the scheme (option 2).
– Tower Hamlets Council Cabinet is discussing these options, plus a new option 3, which has not been consulted on, on Wednesday 20th September.
– Option 3 includes removing more than three quarters of the current scheme and would cost at least £1.2m.

Health and Liveable Streets
● Barts hospital, local GPs and public health professionals want us to keep the streets as they are – for the sake of our health.
● 65 public health professionals have written to Mayor Rahman this week to ask him to keep the Liveable Streets scheme for the sae of residents’ health
● Air quality has improved more within the safer streets area and on the boundary roads than in Tower Hamlets as a whole. This protects kids’ lungs.
● Air pollution is linked to a lot of physical and mental health problems, like stroke, asthma and dementia. (UK Governmet guidance, Health matters: Air pollution)
● Tower Hamlets has the fifth worst air quality in London and is making people sick in the borough.
● In Tower Hamlets, 7% of deaths in 2021 could be attributed to particulate matter pollution, and most of this was from vehicles on our roads. Safety and Liveable Streets
● The police want the current street designs to stay as they have reduced anti-social behaviour and improved road safety. They say the residential streets are less suitable for large amounts of traffic than roads like Bethnal Green Road and the A10.
● The council’s own documents say walking and cycling are safer now. These are the cheapest forms of transport in a cost of living crisis. The council acknowledges in its Equality Impact Assessment that many of the poorest households can’t afford a car and that their ways of getting around may become less safe if the schemes are removed.
● The council’s own document says that young people will pay the price of any changes to our streets, with dirtier air, reduced road safety and a harder time travelling around in healthy ways.
Residents’ views on Liveable Streets
● Most local residents (at least 58%) want to keep the streets as they are in the latest consultation (2023). The 2022 consultation also showed majority support for keeping the scheme
● 3094 Tower Hamlets residents signed a petition in October 2022 asking the Mayor and council to stop their plans to rip out Liveable Streets, listen to ideas for specific improvements and then make those specific improvements.
● The area within the scheme has a higher level of social deprivation than Tower Hamlets as a whole.
● The council itself reported that Census 2021 data shows that deprivation, specifically severe deprivation (i.e. in more than one dimension) is slightly higher in the scheme area than in Tower Hamlets as a whole, and in turn much higher than in London. For example, 7.2% of households in the scheme area are deprived in three different dimensions compared to 5.9% Tower Hamlets average and 4.3% in London overall. Business views on Liveable Streets

● Most local businesses (at least 82%) want to keep the streets as they are in the latest consultation (2023). Costs
● The report to Cabinet costs reversing the Liveable Streets scheme (option 1) as £2m and reversing most of it (option 3) as £1.2m.
● It is not clear how the council has included any future contributions from Transport for London in cost calculations, which it has offered to make. Save our Safer Streets position
● Save our Safer Streets is a group of local residents who want to keep the Liveable Streets scheme and build on it.
● Save our Safer Streets has been calling on the Mayor and council for over a year to listen to local residents about what could be improved about the scheme and focus on these small improvements rather than wasting over £1m on changes that most residents do not want.
● Many of the specific problems with the scheme are on streets where it wasn’t finished – these can be solved with much smaller and cheaper changes like ANPR cameras for residents within the scheme only or for specific groups like disabled people. These should be investigated with residents through face to face events rather than simply through surveys with only 2 options.
● Save our Safer Streets believes the Mayor and council should listen and spend money on things people in Tower Hamlets really want and need like better housing, more funding for our kids’ schools and help with the cost of living.
More information on Save Our Safer Streets: https://heartbg.uk

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