Clean Green Podcast

Residents of Liverpool Road in Islington, London are unhappy about the heavy traffic in their neighborhood and the resulting poor air quality. They have launched the "Save the Lungs on Liverpool Road" campaign to urge the council to reconsider proposals for a low traffic neighborhood. The main concerns are the high levels of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide in the air, which have been linked to health problems. The campaign has gained over 1,900 signatures on their petition and has received press coverage. The residents are frustrated with the lack of action from the council to address the traffic issue. Hello, my name is Fiona Marshall and I'm here with my co-host EB Dudek and you're listening to the Green Scene podcast. Today we're going to be looking at the issue of clean air in London, specifically the Islington area. Residents of Liverpool Road are unhappy about the state of their neighborhood due to heavy traffic. A clean air campaign group in Islington is urging the council to rethink proposals for a low traffic neighborhood as new data shows high levels of traffic on a minor road. The Save the Lungs on Liverpool Road campaign was launched six months ago by Islington residents in response to Barnsbury and Laycock livable neighborhood proposals put forward by the Islington council. Poor air quality in Islington is caused by a variety of factors with damaging emissions from diesel buses, lorries and cars contributing to dangerous levels of pollutants in the air. The two pollutants causing the most concern for London and Islington residents are particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide. These particulates have been linked to cancer, heart and lung damage and onsite asthma in vulnerable people as well as other health problems. They launched a petition urging the council to reconsider the new plans being implemented in their neighborhood. The group's petition is at over 1,900 signatures almost reaching 2,000 which could prompt a council debate. The group also produced a series of posters which residents along the road have displayed on their windows. Islington is the 24th most deprived borough in the country and has some of the highest poverty rates. Residents are faced with the impact that pollution has on their health and life expectancy. We spoke to Jo Michaelides, the head of the campaign to learn more about why she started it and the progress that has been made so far. This is Fiona and E.B. and you're listening to the Green Scene Podcast. So my name is Fiona and this is E.B. Can we start by having you introduce yourself and what you do? So I'm just, I have lived on Liverpool Road now for 19 years and I have two daughters that go to the local secondary schools at Mary Magdalene Academy and I've just got involved with setting up this campaign with Neighbours because a number of us, when we were looking at what the latest proposals are for the Barnesbury and Lacock Liverpool neighbourhood scheme which came out I think in September, we were all just dismayed to realise that the proposals would not only do nothing to address the increasing traffic we've seen on Liverpool Road over the last five years but if anything will further contribute to the problem which is why we set up the Save Lumps on Liverpool Road campaign which was just a reaction in September to, we've been involved in the consultation, many of us, which the Ifrington Council was running from sort of spring time last year up until they presented the proposals, the first round of proposals in September and we all heard the number of people who had sort of mentioned just how bad the traffic was on Liverpool Road and how this is a key thing that should be addressed across the Liverpool neighbourhood so we were all pretty mortified when we realised that this road was only going to get worse not better. Have you been impacted personally by the traffic, have you noticed that, or the air pollution levels? Yeah, I mean, having lived here for 19 years, the road has not had any problems really. We've always had a degree of through traffic coming through because we're a B road but it was the combination of, are you familiar with the neighbourhood around here? Yes. And then maybe, even in the US you might not be but I know maybe Fiona you're local are you? Yeah, we've both lived here since January, so yes, we live, we're very familiar with it. Since January, yeah, so basically what happened is in April 2019, TFL finished sort of remodelling Highbury Corner. It used to be a roundabout and with roundabouts the traffic generally flows quite smoothly but they decided that they wanted to, and stop me if you know any of this and I'm just repeating stuff that's not useful for you, but they decided to change Highbury Corner to make it more friendly for pedestrians and cyclists but in doing so they took out the roundabout, they've created a sort of a wider paving area but the traffic now goes round to this very complicated sort of U-shaped traffic light system which means that rather than the traffic flowing around like it used to do, it all gets backed up and so the consequence of that has been that people who have a sat-nav, which is us people really, they are told rather than going round Highbury Corner if they're on the A1 already, they're told to cut down So we've had a huge increase in traffic just because of the congestion at Highbury Corner because of the changes they've made there. But also shortly after they've implemented that, the Eglinton Council created a few of these LTMs, so the Highbury Field LTM and the Canterbury LTM, which then closed off a number of roads that a lot of cars used to cut through, which again meant that more vehicles, that Highbury Corner got busier, which meant that even more vehicles then started to come down Liverpool Road. So we've been affected quite significantly. You know you used to be able to sit in the summer and have your windows open at night time or if you're trying to watch TV in the evening and you could hear everything fine. Now it's usually so noisy and you know that the air isn't as good because of all the traffic so it's hard to open your windows. We've got neighbours who are complaining that they've had lung and breath breathing problems and they can't open their windows. So it's just a lot, it's a much noisier street, it's a lot more dangerous to cross. You know you used to be able to cross the road barely looking in the last five years but with the addition of the cycle lanes and then the, which we're happy with the cycle lanes and all the additional cars as well and because they've put the parking bays kind of in the middle of the road it's very difficult to cross the road compared to how it used to be. So yeah we've definitely seen a huge sort of change in terms of you know our lived experience on Liverpool Road. Yeah I can't imagine like seeing that change after living there for so long and then also like raising children in those circumstances like especially with like all the pollutants and like children's lungs you know are so much more susceptible and like I've done some background research about just like how many people have been affected by the pollution in this area and it's an astronomical amount and then also just like you know you want your children to be able to like go outside across the street and not have to worry about cars flying by so yeah. Yeah and it's just been very frustrating that this is something that we've been talking to Islington Council about for I'd say about five years since they started, since they implemented, well it was TfL that did it but with Islington Council's approval. They did the hybrid corner but we've been saying that you've got to do something to address the traffic, it's getting worse and they've kind of failed to believe that when they were looking at this Liverpool neighbourhood scheme for Bath, Brearne and Maycock that this would be a priority and we've actually seen stats that you know that show that we're actually carrying more traffic on our B road which is the residential you know and school road than actually up the street is carrying and then on A road which is set up you know to carry more traffic, it doesn't have residents, it hasn't got the parking, so it's set up to cater for heavier traffic yet we're getting higher volumes than up the street and so we've just been saying to the council you know you need to do something to address this, it just seems very very unfair and you know the hybrid corner work, that is a problem but to Islington Council you know they say it's TfL who have implemented obviously implemented that and I think when that was implemented you know it was before these LTM's were created and before the additional cycle lanes were created in different places and so now we've got hybrid corner but I don't know whether you spend much time at hybrid corner but as a pedestrian when you're walking through the pedestrianised area into Pratt or whatever to get your coffee, so many times there are just cyclists just cutting through because they don't want to spend the time going round the lanes that were created for them and it feels really quite dangerous there. Also coming out of a tube station. Yes exactly and it's just like you know that's happened, meanwhile there's not that many cyclists who are using the new layout of hybrid corner because they've now put the cycle lane down Liverpool Road since that was created so most of the cyclists don't or bypass hybrid corner anyway so it just, everything just seems very disjointed you know, they created hybrid corner to make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists but cyclists don't really seem to be using it and those ones are not using the lanes they're doing, they're making it more dangerous. I know they got taken out by a cyclist the other month, they're just cutting across and it just feels like it's very disjointed. The next question for you we have is, what progress has this campaign made so far? Well we have had a lot of support on Liverpool Road. We did the petition, I haven't checked I can have a quick look now to see how many we're up to on our petition. Last time I looked it was about 1800 signatures from the road. I can have a quick look now if I can find our petition and tell you where we're up to. We've had some really good press coverage on it from the Adventure Tribune and also the North West London, we've got 1,973 signatures and then there's also a lot of comments on there as well, I don't know whether you, if you have a look on there you can scroll down and people put their reasons for signing and why they're frustrated with the traffic. So we've had good engagement with that, we've also had, I mean what's been really lovely about this is it started off as a few of us neighbours at one point in the street sort of getting together things that are acceptable and then we were learning that there's other points along the road who are getting together and doing the same thing and so we've all had different stretches from sort of the Angel end up to the Holloway Road end and we've kind of managed to get this group of people who are interested and they've been happy to put up the posters, the banners, to give out the flyers that we've done to kind of communicate. So in terms of a kind of neighbourhood engagement session it's been really, really reassuring and good. And then because we've got, I think it was over 1,500 signatures, that therefore got us a meeting with Islington Council, so myself and two other members of the campaign team who have put together a very, very well thought through alternative proposal. We had the chance to go and meet, I think it was in February, at the town hall to present our proposal for how we could try and support the council with what it's trying to do with creating a liveable neighbourhood but at the same time addressing the biggest problem that there is really in the area at the moment which is the significantly high numbers of vehicles that are using our roads at present up through. And they listened at the meeting, they then said that everything was still open and on the table, that they were waiting for the mayor elections to take place in May and so now I think we've just kind of been waiting to see what their next round of proposals will do and whether they did take into account any of the suggestions that we've made or whether they were just kind of being polite and listening to us and have no intention of doing it. I hope it's the former but until we see the next round of proposals for the liveable neighbourhood we won't know but we're expecting them any time soon really. Yeah, did they give you any sort of time frame on that or no? No, they just said, when we met in February they said there would be nothing further published until after the mayor elections. They said that a couple of weeks ago so I think any day now, I suppose it depends on how big a team they've got working on it so we're all kind of just waiting to see what happens. But in the meantime we've had a very encouraging chat with Tom Tom, you know the people who do the fan out systems, and we've learned that they do a lot of origin and destination traffic monitoring reports and I think one of the frustrations with this whole approach to the traffic strategy in Islington that we've expressed is that a lot of the decisions that we feel that Islington Council have been making have broadly been made on sort of ideological terms, you know like LTM's or something that other boroughs are doing and they can bring this benefit. But actually what we've been asking them to do is to build sort of a, we all want reduced pollution in Islington at a given, but what we've been asking for is for them to try and come up with something that is a solution built on the data that shows where the real traffic issues are. So you know if most of the vehicles driving around Islington were originally from Islington then I could understand that LTM makes sense because it will encourage more active travel, it will make it more difficult for local people to travel around. But actually if most of the traffic, and this is what we suspect is happening, is actually through traffic because of our geographical location, you know at the end of the M1A1, plus the fact that Islington Council has only 30% of residents that actually own a vehicle, if most of the traffic is through traffic and not local traffic then actually maybe they need to consider a different kind of solution rather than LTM's which close down certain parts of the neighbourhood. Maybe it's looking at perhaps an extension of say the congestion zone which should work because it's a fair system, every road is open, everyone gets treated the same. Maybe that would be more of a solution if that was on, but we just don't seem to get the data out at the council which is the basis for what is forming their strategy if you know what I mean. So we've been saying can we look at data and keep it quite close to their chest. I don't know whether that's because they haven't done that much data studies or whether they just don't want to share it, but what's been good about speaking to TomTom is that they've been able to show us some of the data trends. For example we posted on our Facebook group last year between 72 to 80% of vehicles that were originally starting on the A1 on Holloway Road and then they were trying to get to Ifrington High Street, 72% coming from the north to the south would choose to use Liverpool Road rather than staying on the A1 and going around Cadbury Corner and going up to Ifrington High Street and then the reverse for the vehicles in the evening coming out of the city, so going from south to north, 80% of vehicles would choose to cut through Liverpool Road rather than stay on the A1, Upper Street and then join the Holloway Road and go by Cadbury Corner and that just supports what we've been saying that we feel like we're getting way more traffic than Upper Street. So to have these statistics from TomTom which clearly shows that has been really helpful for us, so we've been very grateful for the help that they've been trying to give us in understanding and being able to explain to the council what the real situation is. Yeah, that's good that you have that data provided, but it would be nice if Ifrington Council could actually provide some data as well. Yeah, well we've also offered, I mean I've sent some more data to them and I've also offered to put them in touch with TomTom because I think, you know, they've said to us that their proposal will reduce the amount of east-west traffic and we're saying, well we don't think east-west traffic is the problem, we think the problem is the north-south traffic and they say, well we've got this survey which they won't show us which, you know, we think it's going to, and so actually if they were able to sort of utilise TomTom data, and what's good about their data is whereas Ifrington will do perhaps a study for say a week or four nights, the TomTom data will look at the whole year and so you can, you know, there's no seasonal variations. One of the frustrations we had is when we originally started to complain to the council about traffic, I think they were looking at September 2018 and I didn't need to check that data, and then they did it again in August 2020 and told us there'd been no increase, but August 2020 is school holidays, it was Covid time, no one was allowed to go anywhere, so of course there wouldn't be any increase in that week that they looked at, and then they did another study in September 2021 for a week and said there was no increase, but when I checked out the dates that they did the study, you know G Network who do a lot of the cabling for Wi-Fi, they were actually had half the road dug up, which meant that the traffic was, you know, a lot of the road was closed off, and the week that they were doing their study then, the traffic wasn't flowing like it normally would anyway, so we feel like, I'm not saying, it could just be bad luck, but we feel like they haven't picked the kind of the most optimum weeks to really give a fair indication of what's been happening with the traffic, and that's why, you know, having a look at annual data maybe rather than just around the weeks that they've been picking, which have, you know, supported their stance, which is that they don't think traffic's increased as much as we're saying, this kind of gets around But no, it's been, we've had a lot of support, the local secondary school head teacher has been very supportive, they've put all of our materials in their school windows, they've put our banner on the railings, and, you know, and then they've been speaking to the council over the years as well, so I think even people who don't live on Liverpool Road have been supporting us and saying, you know, something has to be done about it, because it's just become, you know, very unsafe for, you know, so many cyclists to use our road now, which is great, but they shouldn't be having to deal with so many cars as well, it should be a quieter cycling route, and I don't know whether you cycle down Liverpool Road, but if you are cycling and you try and turn, so if you're cycling and a car is coming along and it's trying to turn left, but it's just past one of these kind of floating parking lanes, a lot of the drivers don't notice the cyclists that are coming along in that side lane, because the visibility is bad, so it's kind of, they've created some sort of slightly dangerous set-ups for a lot of the cyclists, unfortunately, with the layout they've got, but again, if the traffic was slower and there was less of it, then it wouldn't be such a problem. Yeah, and then it also creates, like, more hazards for people on the sidewalks when these cyclists are now, you know, taking up that, so, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then we have one last question for you. Yeah, sure. And what do we, is this for a school project or a uni project? Yeah, a uni project. We're creating a podcast. Oh, wow, good on you. So we'll be out of office. Our last question is, what advice would you give to someone looking to start a similar campaign in their own community? I think I would say, get out and talk to people. I mean, that's where we've had some of the most kind of serendipitous conversations and connections of just, you know, even walking around putting up our laminated posters, our lampposts, you know, people would stop and talk to us. We'd give them flyers and they'd say, oh, gosh, we hadn't realised this was going on. And then they would say, we will take, we'll put something on our, you know, on our windows and of course we'll get your kind of vision. And it's just one, I think people like community and I think this is what's been great about Liverpool Road is a long road. And I think this has just made everyone sort of unite on something that we all feel very passionately about. And I think, yes, we've posted stuff on, you know, the Next Door, we've got the Facebook group, but the most, I think the most sort of satisfying and helpful thing has just been just talking to people on the streets that have been out giving out flyers and just hearing what their experience is and connecting over that kind of, you know, over the issues that we're all dealing with. And I think that's what I'd say if anyone else was looking to do a similar kind of campaign is to, you know, get a few interested people together and then, you know, really work the way around and just get out and engage. And that's what seems to have helped us, you know, get to where we are so far. I mean, whether the council will pay any attention to what we're doing, time will tell. But I think we all just feel that we couldn't just let this happen and just sit there and do nothing. So, you know, even if they plan on doing what they were originally planning to do, we know we've tried. And now, thanks to Tom Tom, who are going to not only have the origin and destination traffic monitoring, but they're also going to be able to monitor traffic volumes as well at the end of the year. Then we'll be able to sort of be able to use their statistics, hopefully, to look at the impact of what the council has done with its sort of next stage of its proposals when the instrument loads. So I feel it's, you know, it's probably something that's more of a longer term plan. Initially, we just thought, oh, we'll just make it a bit of a noise for a month or two and that will be it. But here we are, whatever six months been, and it's still going on. So, yeah. Well, that's amazing. And hopefully, you will see some progress from the LinkedIn Council. But until then, you know, just keep... Yeah, thank you so much for your time. No, it's really nice to speak to you both. Thank you so much for your interest in this. Once again, this is the Clean Green Podcast, and we're your hosts, Fiona and Evie. Thank you for listening.