Hanover residents oppose the LTN
Many Hanover residents oppose the LTN that’s been presented by BHCC and Green Councillors. It’s going to affect different groups in different ways. We are not exactly sure how any more, as we don’t even know what the current plan is. The map that was used for the ‘consultation’ has been described by council officers as not fit for purpose and is obviously going to be changed. We don’t know whether we will even be allowed to see the new plans before implementation, let alone have another consultation or have a say in what we actually want as residents.
We don’t know exactly how much this process has cost so far. We believe that at least £150,000 of council tax payers money has already been wasted on an unnecessary and incompetently managed scheme that will now be thrown in the bin. We need proper accountability and a new consultation for any plans going forward. We also want a yes/no vote on the whole scheme.
The following interviews are a snapshot of how some people are feeling about the LTN, how it will impact their lives as disabled residents, businesses, tradesmen and people going about their everyday lives.
Chris Beaumont, Hanover resident.
Chris Beaumont has lived in Hanover for the past 37 years. He’s an actor and people will also know him as the very successful landlord of the Greys Pub. He was chair of the Hanover and Elm Grove action Group for five years and stood to be a local councillor in 2015. He opposes the LTN.
Chris first became aware of a plan for a ‘Liveable Neighbourhood’ when it was introduced by Hanover Action Group in 2020, as a very different scheme to the current LTN. At the time it was a discussion about how the area could be improved for residents by tidying up, introducing dropped curbs, more benches, planting more trees etc. Residents were generally in favour of improvements and there were no plans to close roads or introduce bus gates. Chris gradually became aware that the Hanover Action Group were changing the plan from a ‘Liveable Neighbourhood’ scheme to something very different, an official Low Traffic Neighbourhood. A group of about eight people from HAG then took their ideas to the council claiming that residents were in favour of a full LTN, something that had not been discussed and many people strongly opposed.
Chris doesn’t believe that there are environmental gains to be had from an LTN. He says that many people in the area moved here to have easy pedestrian and public transport access to the city, and don’t tend to use their cars for short journeys. On the other hand they do need to be able to get in and out by car when necessary. The current LTN plan, with one main entrance and exit at the top of Southover Street, would virtually block access to the West of the city. This would mean big increases to journey times and pollution. For example, Chris and his partner, Gill, need to get to Southwick several times a week to look after Gill’s 93 year old mother. It is simply not practical to make the journey on public transport, they have to drive. Chris is well aware of climate change concerns and was an early adopter of hybrid cars, he tries to reduce his environmental impact wherever possible.
Chris says he might back improvements to an LTN if it helped to cut down non local traffic without blocking off roads. He believes there are fairly easy ways to do this without a formal LTN but plans need to be far less intrusive; residents, deliveries, tradesmen and businesses need to get in and out easily. He thinks the public consultation has been appalling. Whatever changes are made, he thinks residents have the right to be fully involved and that the refusal to offer a Yes/No vote makes the process so far completely invalid.
Chris believes that one part of the scheme that will not be dropped is the Bus Gate. The council particularly want to get this through to generate income from fines. Local authorities throughout the country are increasingly relying on this type of revenue to boost their budgets. When Chris questioned one Green councillor as to why a Bus Gate was necessary in an area with so few buses, the reply was “Because we’ve got to pay for this new scheme somehow”.
Chris points out that boundary roads in Elm Grove and Queens Park road will have a big increase in traffic if an LTN goes ahead, affecting the many residents that live there. Some of the boundary areas already exceed legal pollution limits. Chris and others have called for an environmental impact assessment to see how this might change if an LTN is introduced, but BHCC have repeatedly refused to commission one. He’d like to know why?
He hopes that local people will become more involved in the campaign by signing petitions and deputations as they crop up, writing to councillors, and keeping up the pressure on local government to listen to residents.
Chris is also mentioned that, whilst he is often called upon to be a spokesperson for the campaign group, there are now over 600 members of the Stop or Improve the Hanover and Tarner LTN Facebook group who have similar views.
Carolyn Lewis, resident and member of Queens Park Road action group
Carolyn Lewis has lived on Queens Park Road for the last 22 years. She is part of the ‘Save Queens Park Road Area and Tarner’ group. The group has been very active in questioning the first version of the Hanover and Tarner LTN plan presented in the summer of 2022.
During her career, Carolyn worked at Brighton University for 19 years as manager of the Students’ Union, and taught Employee Relations and Employment Law in Brighton Business School. She is very familiar with the concept of consultation and negotiation and thinks that there has been no real consultation on the LTN. She refers disparagingly to the drop in sessions managed by BHCC as ‘pop ups’, where there was no forum for consultation, nothing recorded, nothing taken away and no follow ups. She is not resistant to change but questions the need for an LTN in this area and believes, with some gentle modifications to local road layouts, all the best objectives could have been achieved without the disruption. She thinks Hanover is particularly unsuited to this pilot LTN because of it’s geographical nature.
Carolyn is very concerned about the effect of an LTN on local business. She is not happy about the proposed ‘trial period’, which could go on for 18 months or more, by which time some businesses may have moved away or gone bankrupt. She has listened to some very uninformed reasoning from councillors and council officers, who at one point suggested that brewery trucks that were blocked by the new road arrangements could deliver their beer by rolling barrels down the hill to the relevant pub.
As a resident on a boundary road Carolyn also pointed out the total impracticality of increasing traffic on Egremont Place, higher levels of pollution on Queens Park Road and the inevitable creation of new rat runs through the St Lukes area as traffic tries to avoid newly created congestion spots.
Carolyn would like to know why BHCC are so shy about engaging with people that care about the area? Why was there no feasibility study for a proposal that will have such an impact on residents? She believes the LTN is a grab for government money and was initiated on a whim by a small group of people, rather than by necessity or popular demand. She understands the councillors’ reluctance to offer a vote on the implementation of an LTN but thinks it is justified in this case.
One of Carolyn’s group’s most recent actions has been to send a list of questions and concerns to her own local councillors, Green councillors from the Hanover group that initiated the LTN proposal, representatives of the Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee and other relevant parties (link below). It was signed by 266 local residents.
This was sent out on the 11th November 22. The only person that had replied by 1st December 22 was MP Caroline Lucas, who had been copied in as a courtesy. After a second letter to Cllr. Elaine Hills, one of the main proponents of the LTN, she eventually received a reply, telling her to expect a response within a couple of weeks. As of today, 7th December, she still hasn’t received that response. This is an extract from Carolyn’s reply to Elaine Hills:
“Shame on you and the councillors of Queens Park and Elm Grove Wards for treating your electorate with such contempt. Where are the answers to our questions? Where are the rumoured revised plans for the LTN? Where is your democratic commitment towards local residents?”
Link to Carolyn’s letter here, still live if you wish to sign it.