THAMES GATEWAY BRIDGE INQUIRY ENDS

Transcription

1 Media Briefing May 2006 THAMES GATEWAY BRIDGE INQUIRY ENDS The public inquiry into controversial plans by Transport for London (TfL), to build a 6-lane road bridge across the Thames between east and south east London has ended after nearly a year, amid a hail of criticism of the scheme from a range of objectors. National campaign organisations Friends of the Earth and Transport 2000 say the 1/2billion Thames Gateway bridge (TGB) would create more traffic with resulting noise and pollution, that serious flaws in TfLs case were exposed, and that key issues remain unresolved. They are calling for the proposal to be rejected and for alternative ways to help with the area s economic and transport problems. As well as the unacceptable environmental effects on the local area, Transport 2000 and Friends of the Earth also criticised the flawed and uncertain regeneration case, non compliance with key policies and failure to adequately consult the public. Further, during the inquiry TfL admitted that its traffic modelling and forecasts were unreliable and there was an adjournment while new figures were compiled. Even these revised traffic estimates are considered unreliable by Bexley Council. Furthermore, inconsistencies were exposed - and remain - between two of TfL s key witnesses, leaving uncertainties over the effects of the scheme. Friends of the Earth London Campaign Coordinator, Jennifer Bates said: "The case for building this damaging bridge has not been proven. In fact the inquiry has shown that it would increase traffic and air pollution, make conditions worse for people walking and cycling, and do little to regenerate the area. Plans to build this bridge should be thrown out and TfL should bring forward transport and regeneration solutions which do not add to the area s traffic and pollution problems. That would be a move towards ensuring a sustainable Thames Gateway. Richard Bourn, London Campaigner for Transport 2000 said: The TGB would be a complete waste of money. Objectors have shown that they can play a vital role in scrutinising proposals and have exposed fundamental weaknesses in TfL s evidence. But this has been an unequal struggle. Objectors should be adequately funded in future to help ensure that public money is properly spent. As well as a background section, this briefing will look at some key points on: 1. Traffic 2. Public Transport 3. Air quality and noise 4. Regeneration 5. Policy 6. Consultation 7. Remaining issues Page 1

2 Background History The Thames Gateway bridge is the successor to the previous East London River Crossing that would have cut through the ancient Oxleas Wood to the A2, but was defeated in the 1990s. A consultation in 1995 on possible river crossings east of Tower bridge never had the results properly published, but in 1996 the Government proposed a package of 3 river crossings. These were the TGB, a 3 rd road crossing at Blackwall and a DLR crossing to Woolwich. The TfL Board passed the TGB in 2002 only with the casting vote of Mayor Livingstone. Consultation on the scheme was held in 2003, and in 2004 there was some further consultation when the Environmental Statement was ready and planning applications were submitted to Greenwich and Newham councils. Both councils approved the scheme, Greenwich only narrowly. The scheme was called in for a public inquiry in early The scheme The Thames Gateway bridge would link the A406 North Circular Road dual carriageway in Newham (that links directly to the M11), with the A2016 dual carriageway in Greenwich (which links to the M25). The proposed scheme is 6 lanes with 4 lanes for general traffic, and 2 planned for public transport. A TfL Board member has expressed concerns over the possibility of all 6 lanes converted to use by general traffic if public transport usage on the bridge dropped off. The 4 local boroughs are defined as the London Boroughs of Greenwich, Bexley, Newham and Barking & Dagenham. Rather than local traffic being that within the local boroughs, TfL considers all traffic that would either begin or end its journey in one of the local boroughs as local. Tolling is proposed on the scheme with lower tolls for people in a local discount area. The public inquiry The public inquiry began on 7th June 2005 and was originally scheduled to last for 4-6 weeks. It was held at Charlton Athletic Football Club. There was an adjournment for about two months at the beginning of 2006 when TfL was forced to revise its case when traffic figures from the London Borough of Bexley showed traffic figures TfL had modelled for 2001 were wrong. This meant that there would be more traffic on the local roads without the scheme than TfL had previously predicted, and so less space for extra traffic generated by the scheme. TfL s revised case therefore had to cap the amount of traffic generated by the bridge to avoid unacceptable congestion on local roads. To achieve this a higher peak time toll was introduced and the size of the local area that would get a discount on tolls was reduced. Key deprived parts of Bexley would now be left out of the discount area and would have to pay 3 instead of 1 in peak times to cross the bridge by road. The revised case meant a loss of 25% on TfL s claimed regeneration benefits and 30% on the benefit cost ratio. Following final statements from objectors at the end of April, TfL made their final submission and the inquiry closed on 3rd May Site visits to various locations north and south of the river took place before and after 3rd May. Page 2

3 Objectors to the Thames Gateway Bridge who appeared at the public inquiry include the London Borough of Bexley, MPs from all three main political parties, national campaign groups Transport 2000 and Friends of the Earth, and many local community groups and individuals. There were in total thousands of individual objectors to the scheme, including those from both sides of the river. The objectors have been assisted by advice from a group of expert consultants funded by 65,000 from TfL in an unprecedented agreement between Mayor Livingstone and the Green Party Group on the Greater London Authority. This still leaves the objectors in a considerably weaker position as TfL has budgets of millions of pounds to develop the plans for the TGB. The public inquiry website is at where there are daily transcripts and sections with documents from TfL, supporters and the objectors. 1. Traffic TfL considers that if the bridge were built the traffic increases would be manageable through tolls, however: 17m vehicles a year would use the TGB, and traffic would grow 10% -36% in the local boroughs of Greenwich, Bexley, Newham and Barking & Dagenham, according to TfL. Traffic flows would more than double on many roads, and key junctions like the North Circular A406 and the A13 would have heavy jams, according to TfL. Existing traffic congestion would be hardly, if at all, relieved. Flows at Blackwall Tunnel would remain about the same. TfL s revised case showed that there would not be the reduced queuing at Blackwall Tunnel in the AM peak hour if the bridge were built, that their original case expected. Greenwich Council admitted that it expects to fail its target set by the Mayor for reducing traffic growth in the borough. The scheme can only make it more difficult to meet targets, yet research shows car travel demand can be cut by 33% in large urban areas. 2. Public Transport, cycle and walking TfL considers it is providing adequate and valuable public transport, however: TfLs original case showed that 94% of the benefits of the scheme would go to car, van and lorry users, and only 6% to public transport users. Only a quarter to a third of people living in the wards closest to the scheme are car owners, according to the 2001 census. Fewer people would use public transport if the scheme were built than if it were not. Fewer people would also walk and cycle, and accidents would increase, TfL admit. 3. Air quality and Noise TfL considers the adverse environmental disbenefits relatively small or minor, however: There are already high asthma rates in some areas, but air quality would deteriorate further Page 3

4 because of traffic fumes. There is no safe level for some pollutants. The bridge would add to breaches of EU air quality limits, instead of reducing them, TfL admit. Several areas would have significant increases in pollution according to Association of London Government criteria. Despite mitigation measures, there would be more noise affecting local residents. Noise would mean some schools suffer a moderate/substantial adverse effect. Some people would not be able to sleep with their windows open, according to TfL, based on World Health Organisation guidelines. 4. Regeneration Based on comparison with west London which has better accessibility and higher density of jobs and population, TfL claims regeneration effects from improved accessibility to jobs for residents, and to employees for businesses. They say the scheme could result in 25,000 potential new jobs. However: TfL admits its regeneration case is far from certain. It is quite possible the bridge would not have a regeneration effect, TfL effectively admit. Professor Rosewell, TfLs regeneration witness, is quoted in TfL s closing statement as saying the most likely outcome is that there will be some kind of increase (in potential employment and population in the area). See below on the 2-way street effect. Bexley could end up with no extra jobs whatever, according to TfL figures. It is public transport (not highway) accessibility that has a strong link with employment and population density, TfLs own evidence showed. Experts for the objectors have said that the scheme would make high density development more difficult to achieve, and a private sector report expected warehousing and distribution businesses (which are low density and low employment) to be the beneficiaries of the bridge. The 5 local boroughs in the east of London (the main 4 plus Redbridge) have higher levels of the population with no or low qualifications, as compared to those in the 5 west London boroughs that TfL used as a comparison. This correlates with higher proportions of people claiming jobseekers allowance in the 5 boroughs in the east, than those in the 5 boroughs in the west. The scheme is not targeted at those most in need. The London Development Agency cites Newham as one of London s most disadvantaged areas, where employment rates should be increased by more than the rest of London. Greenwich is not in the most disadvantaged group, yet TfL s evidence shows the claimed improved accessibility from the scheme - to jobs for residents and to potential employees for businesses - would be much greater for locations in Greenwich than in Newham. The Government s Social Exclusion Unit s 2003 report said that only two out of 5 jobseekers find lack of transport a barrier to getting a job. This scheme is also not best targeted at those in the local area for whom transport is an issue as the scheme is overwhelmingly of benefit to road users rather than public transport users, in an area where there is very low car ownership. Newham is close to Canary Wharf and the jobs it offers, and TfL evidence shows Newham already Page 4

5 has above average accessibility, but also that the borough remains the 3 rd most deprived in England. Poor areas could lose out to competition from people using the TGB, experts said (the 2- way street effect). 5. Policy and alternatives TfL says the scheme is not in conflict with policy and they did not have to consider alternative schemes, however: Recent Government policy on Sustainable Development and on climate change emissions requires respecting of environmental limits and for reductions of CO2 emissions, but the TGB would add to breaches of EU air quality emissions and increase emissions of CO2. Policy requires that long distance commuting by car should not be encouraged but, as well as being mainly a road scheme, most trips projected by TfL to be using the bridge are not local, ie within the local boroughs, in the AM peak hour. Trips that only start or end in a local borough (most trips on the bridge) will include longer distance trips, TfL admits, but they only aim to discourage longdistance through traffic, not long-distance traffic per se. Government and regional policy require the most deprived areas to be targeted, but this scheme does not do that (see above on regeneration). The scheme has not been shown to comply with the London Plan policy 3C.15, as it would increase the capacity of the corridor, but cannot be shown to be essential to regeneration. No alternatives such as public transport schemes have been properly examined. The only time that local people were asked, in 1995, they clearly said they preferred more public transport to road crossings. A walk, cycle and bus only crossing would be cheaper, an expert has stated. 6. Consultation TfL says it has adequately consulted local people, however local people have been failed by a catalogue of consultation failings which include: The consultation on the Mayor s Transport Strategy had a question that sandwiched river crossings (without stating that these included road schemes) between public transport mode references, meaning respondents did not have the opportunity to support more public transport without also supporting road crossings. TfL s consultation in 2003 was flawed as information changed in the middle of the consultation, with even the new information only showing interim figures, yet TfL continue to use the results of the consultation without qualification. The Environmental Statement was not available until In 2003, after TfL distributed consultation materials to local people and held roadshows, 90% of people in Newham were not aware of such materials and events, consultation documents show. When in 2004 Friends of the Earth went door to door in Beckton to ask people about the scheme, many were not aware of the scheme, or what its effects would be. In one street of 30 homes, 19 signed a letter objecting to the scheme, 6 did not want to, and 5 could not be reached (because Page 5

6 they were out etc). 7. Remaining Issues TfL considered its case was reliable, and now consider it is reliable, and that there is no need for further work, however: a) Bexley Council s criticisms (see background to the public inquiry above) TfL had to admit that its modelling and forecasts had been unreliable following Bexley Council highlighting problems with TfL s case that led to TfL revising their case. Bexley Council s closing statment highlighted that it still considers that TfLs traffic modelling and forecasts are unreliable and that further work is needed, and that there could be effects in other boroughs. b) There is an inconsistency between TfLs traffic and regeneration witnesses. Despite calls to do so, TfL have not done any further work on this, and the inconsistency remains. This means that at the end of the public inquiry the true traffic effects attributable to the scheme are unknown and this could affect air quality and climate changing effects attributable to the scheme too. Professor Goodwin, on behalf of the objectors, presented evidence on the inconsistency existing between TfL witnesses on transport (Richard Smith) and on regeneration (Professor Rosewell) (28th February 2006). He produced papers suggesting how work could be done on how to resolve this, and when TfL said that it would not do further work, he presented a paper on 21 st April on the effects of this inconsistency. TfL s traffic evidence is based on the difference between two cases TfL prepared - one for the situation in 2016 if the bridge were not built, and the other, also for 2016, for if the bridge were built. Thus the difference should show the effect of the scheme. Separately, TfLs regeneration witness says the scheme is necessary to create extra jobs and attract extra population to the area. TfL however has assumed the same number of jobs and population in both its cases. In other words, TfL has included in its case for if the scheme were not built, jobs and population that its regeneration witness say would not be encouraged to the area without the scheme. This apparently shows the scheme has no effect in increasing job opportunities or in attracting population to the area. The difference between different levels of traffic in the two cases, with much higher traffic levels in the case if the scheme were built, shows the traffic that TfL admit is a result of the scheme. This increase in traffic is however only the result of people s changed choice of mode of travel or route because of the new bridge. For instance if there is a new bridge some people would now choose to travel by car when they had not before, some that would have gone by car across the river at Blackwall Tunnel or the Dartford crossing would now use the new bridge. This in turn frees up space on those existing crossings for other people to use those, creating more traffic. If however the scheme did result in increases in jobs and population, the traffic that would result from this should not be included in the case without the scheme. It is the difference between the two cases that shows the effects of the scheme, so if traffic from jobs and people only attracted to the area because of the scheme is included in the case without the scheme, that makes the difference between the two cases seem less, and so the traffic attributable to the scheme seem less. Professor Goodwin showed that if traffic from increases in jobs and population which TfL claim would be created by the scheme were instead added onto the case with the scheme, there is an increase in the traffic attributed Page 6

7 to being generated by the scheme. Based on data from TfL this rise in traffic was 119% in Bexley and 80% over the 5 local boroughs (the main 4 local boroughs and Redbridge). ENDS. Page 7