The Low Traffic Neighbourhoods scheme has sparked angry protests from many residents

• IT’S rewarding to read in the Tribune Letters pages about the success of Islington Council’s low-traffic schemes.

The benefits are undeniable to those privileged enough to be able to enjoy them.

But you don’t need to look far to see there are serious down sides, issues that seem to have been ignored if they were considered at all.

You only have to look in the windows of shops across Highbury to see posters (“Keep Highbury Moving”) asking the council to think again.

One major N5 firm has reportedly lost £100,000 of sales since the LTN, low traffic neighbourhoods, were imposed.

Another trader in Highbury Barn may suspend local deliveries caused by the traffic on the council’s “alternative routes”. Yet another worries that their business will not survive.

It is understood some shops in Drayton Park have already cut their staff because of a 50 per cent drop in trade.

And not just these. This crisis is reflected across the area.

Yet while businesses flounder, with their customers and deliveries hindered and barred from the most efficient routes, Islington’s own vehicles continue as before, miraculously exempt from the restrictions.

How is it the local authority’s business can’t be conducted without their vehicles driving across the LTN boundaries yet private businesses, where livelihoods depend on it, are being penalised?

Meanwhile, on the edges of the LTNs roads are as congested as ever, with those told to use an alternative route simply adding to the snarl-ups and pollution.

None of this benefits the environment, with those living, working and walking on those routes confronted by anything but empty streets and cleaner air.

The potential benefits listed by the proponents of LTNs are undeniably impressive. We all know this and don’t need to repeat them.

What we need is for everyone to accept and acknowledge that there is another list – as long, if not longer – of negatives; things that are very badly wrong and cannot wait until the schemes are reviewed.

Action is needed now, not in six or 18 months. People keep talking about how attitudes will modify “in time”.

The reality is that, in time, instead of posters asking the council to think again, shop windows will be boarded over, valued services will be lost, and well-loved businesses will have gone to the wall.

Everyone acknowledges cleaner air and reducing pollution are good for personal health. But motor vehicles are essential to the health of the neighbour-hood.

The Keep Highbury Moving campaign is not about filling the streets with cars and vans again.

It’s about acknowledging and resolving the serious problems caused by road closures so together we can find a way that benefits all; a better alternative to the hastily introduced LTNs.

RICHARD SMITH
Highbury Hill, N5