• REGARDING Kevin Gray’s letter (Get the traffic moving again, October 27) and his claim that “feelings are running high along the full length of Liverpool Road” at the proposed low traffic neighbourhood, I have tried to draw Islington Council’s attention to their previous policy to close Liverpool Road southwards from Tolpuddle Street, which was constructed specifically to enable that closure to happen.

It would certainly have improved conditions dramatically for pedestrians at a point where there are far more of them, on narrower pavements and next to heavier traffic, than at any other point in the proposed Barnsbury-Laycock “liveable neighbourhood”. But the council’s present plans do nothing about it!

Indeed, keeping that stretch of Liverpool Road open is essential to their present plans as part of the perimeter road encircling the LTN. Closing it, however, would create a highly desirable pedestrian civic space at the heart of Islington.

The proposal was defeated at the last moment in about 1990 with a pop-up “Save Our Streets” campaign and opposition from some Chapel Market traders. It needs to be dusted off and re-examined.

Closing roads simply as part of a general policy of discouraging the use of vehicles by making it more difficult is not enough of a trade-off. There needs to be a more immediately tangible benefit. With the creation of a civic space at the southern end of Liverpool Road there would be.

JAMES DUNNETT
James Dunnett Architects
Barnsbury Road, N1