A council spokesperson said: “How we all choose to move around our borough can impact whole communities in positive and negative ways. We have the fourth highest number of babies being hospitalised with respiratory tract infections as well as one of the highest levels of childhood obesity in London. Traffic is one of the main causes of air pollution and 31% of the borough’s carbon emissions. By reducing it we can make it easier and safer for people to walk and cycle. This is one of the aims of our transport strategy, alongside calling for improvements to public transport and encouraging a shift to low emission vehicles.” 

Both neighbourhoods suffer from high levels of traffic passing through and poor air quality, despite the fact many local residents do not own cars. The Council wrote to over 9,200 households and businesses in the area and held seven events attended by over 400 people. In total over 8,000 responses were received across both phases, including 3,000 in the second phase.    

The Council recognises that local people agree that there is an issue and were supportive of the vision for improving the environment, with less through-traffic, and better air quality but had concerns about the proposals the Council consulted on during phase two. Following what residents said, big changes have been proposed – including part time closures and significantly extended exemptions.  

The consultation responses have now been analysed and a report has been prepared that was uploaded to the Council's website on Thursday 29 February for consultation. Councillor Averil Lekau, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Climate Change, Environment and Transport, will consider the report and aims to make a decision on 8 March 2024. After Councillor Lekau has taken a decision there will then be a call-in period before the decision takes effect. If there is no call in the decision will take effect on 15 March 2024.  

The Report recommends the Cabinet Member for Climate Change, Environment and Transport, to trial:   

• part-time camera-controlled restrictions on weekdays at peak hours only to stop through traffic on certain roads in the west and east Greenwich area; and   
•  extended exemptions for blue badges holders, taxis, private hire vehicles, council refuse vehicles and individuals with individual circumstances exemptions.      

If the recommendation option is agreed by Cllr Lekau, a trial, known as an experimental traffic order, will begin in summer 2024 and continue for up to 18-months. Residents will have the opportunity to feedback during the trial – during which they will have had first-hand experience of how it is working in practice. The Council would closely monitor the impact of the measures, and further changes could be made if necessary.  

Roads with restrictions would still be open to people walking, cycling, and using wheelchairs and every address will still be accessible by car - however in some instances people driving may have to take a different route. 

It is important to stress that the this is an experimental order and that no final decision will, be made without consideration of the information/ feedback provided by residents of their experiences during the experimental period. At the end of the trial a decision would then be made to keep, remove, or change the trial scheme based on resident feedback and the monitoring data that will be collected at the same time.  

To keep the local community informed about the proposals, updates will be provided through the Council’s website, in letters to residents and businesses in the consultation area, the on the Greener Safer Greenwich portal.    

Read the Council’s decision report for further details on the options that are being considered and the feedback received from the consultation.