Distribution of reported serious injury collisions inside the new Highbury LTNs and on adjacent main roads (2017-2019 inclusive). From TfL London collision map data (left)

Distribution of reported road collision fatalities inside the new Highbury LTNs and on adjacent main roads (2005-2019 inclusive). From TfL London collision map data (right)

• REDUCING road traffic danger is one of the go-to explanations for why we urgently “need” our new Highbury LTNs, low traffic neighbourhoods.

Having been a Highbury resident for nearly 30 years, I am surprised at this notion of it being a place where our more residential streets were previously fraught with road traffic danger.

So how good is Highbury’s road safety record?

Thankfully there has not been a fatal road collision inside the area where the new Highbury LTNs stand since 2005; and from 2017 to 2019 inclusive there were, fortunately, only eight serious injury road collisions recorded.

Take a short step beyond the new LTNs, though, and the picture changes.

Along our adjacent main roads, sadly, there have been 10 fatal road collisions since 2005; and 55 serious injury road collisions were recorded for 2017-2019 inclusive.

This polarised distribution of road safety risk on our roads makes complete sense, Islington Council itself previously noting that: “The majority of Islington’s serious road traffic incidents occur on the [Transport for London Road Network], which are the busiest roads in the borough.”

What does not make sense is why, in the name of road safety, the council is now funnelling motor traffic from essentially safe roads out onto a network of roads that have recorded 10 times as many fatalities and nearly eight times as many serious road injury collisions.

Perversely the LTNs wrap cotton wool around already relatively safe streets (albeit LTNs can’t and don’t diminish road share conflict between cyclists and pedestrians, if anything they increase it), while making more dangerous, adjacent, main roads much busier and inevitably even more collision prone.

When appraising risk to health and wellbeing we should not lose sight of the broader community context.

In the three years from 2017 to 2019 inclusive there were seven road collision deaths across the whole of the borough. In this same period, sadly, our borough suffered 54 suicides and 61 drug poisoning deaths.

While any death is very sad in terms of risk to our community, and action needed in support, it is surely deeply disconcerting that in its 2021/2022 budget the council cut the substance misuse budget by £150,000 but included spending of £4.243million on LTNs.

The council needs to step back through the looking glass and properly recognise where the risks to our community lie before it’s too late.

RACHEL BOLT
Inside the Highbury West LTN