Tories have begun work to remove LTNs, but the election did not give them a mandate to do so

Enfield Council's new minority Conservative administration has begun the process required to remove the Fox Lane and Bowes low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), despite the fact that their share of votes did not give them a mandate to do so.

If the minority Conservative administration gets its way, Fox Lane and all the streets on either side will again be dominated by cars rather than people

In his May/June 2026 newsletter to residents of Southgate ward, Cllr Stephanos Ioannou writes that all Conservative councillors in the borough “are committed to ensuring that we fulfil a main manifesto pledge to remove all existing LTNs and to abolish all future planned LTNs in the borough”. He goes on to write that “we are currently setting out a timeline for their removal. We will remove them.”

In the newsletter Cllr Ioannou also claims that LTNs have “negatively impacted the lives of all residents” and that they “worsen living standards” by increasing journey times.;

In a social media interaction with a supporter of LTNs who asks “Stephanos, How much council money have you set aside to spend on court cases & fees regarding LTN removals?”, the councillor replies, “Paul, LTNs will be removed at all costs. Worth every penny removing them, people hate them. As do I.”

It's correct that this pledge was included in the Conservative manifesto. However, the Tories did not win a majority of seats and only won a third (33.3%) of votes cast. The two other parties who won seats - Labour and the Greens - both supported retaining the LTNs, and between them they won 45.8% of the votes cast and more seats on the council than the Conservatives. The Tories thus cannot claim to have a mandate to abolish the LTNs.

Furthermore, the LTNs have not negatively impacted the lives of all residents. Many if not most people living within the LTNs will have been positively impacted because they now live in a safer environment where they can be much more relaxed when walking in local streets. And many people living outside the LTNs benefit too: they are able to walk or cycle through the LTNs without the danger and stress brought on by large numbers of fast moving cars. I myself benefit. I walk through the Fox Lane LTN several times a week and my health benefits from walking up hilly Fox Lane to get to addresses in Southgate. Previously, I often caught the bus instead because the large amount of traffic in Fox Lane was intimidating, noisy and stressful.

Eighty or ninety per cent of those drivers had no business driving through those residential roads, and because they didn't live there, they paid little attention to the disruption they were causing to residents and pedestrians..And as for Cllr Ioannou's point that “Roads must be accessible for all regardless”: regardless of what he writes, there are no parts of any roads that can't be accessed by drivers. And with regard to accessibility, every day I see two disabled men using zimmer frames walking down Fox Lane in the middle of the road on their way to the shops. They now have a truly acccessible way to get to Green Lanes, previously having to use the pavements would have made those journeys much more challenging.

As for worsening living standards, well my standard of living and overall wellbeing have been greatly improved, and no doubt that's true for hundreds of others. I don't measure my wellbeing in terms of how long it takes me to get from A to B, I measure in terms of how much birdsong I can hear as i walk along, and how much pleasure I get from walking, and I compare it to the dreadful car-infested past, where it was pointless stopping to talk to someone because we were drowned out by traffic noise.. I can take pleasure in seeing other people, including many children, walking the calm streets or making the steep ascent of Fox  Lane on their bikes..

“People hate them”. Clearly, some do, but many love them. I can't wait for the whole borough and the whole country to be full of them. Walk the calm streets of Walthamstow and see what I mean.