The Healthy Streets Scorecard 2025, published 8 July, has shown the dangerous impact of Lutfur Rahman’s policies on transport. Tower Hamlets dropped 4 places in the ranking of London boroughs on infrastructure which supports people to take healthier modes of travel.
Our borough’s fall in the rankings is mostly due to inaction, but the Mayor is threatening to rip out the borough’s few Low Traffic Neighbourhoods half-heartedly installed by the previous Labour administration.
His dangerous policy has only been stopped by the hard work of campaigners in Bethnal Green, Save Our Safer Streets. The campaign group lost their judicial review of the Mayor’s decision to remove the LTN around Old Bethnal Green Road, but their appeal is due to be heard in November.
The Mayor has also followed misguided policies to increase car parking and has blocked funding for dropped kerbs across the borough.His manifesto called for existing TfL cycle lanes to be ‘monitored for their effectiveness’ – which sounded worryingly like he was considering trying to remove them. And he certainly didn’t call for an increase in cycle lanes which provide some comfort for less confident cyclists.
Why the Mayor’s policies aren’t right for Tower Hamlets
Tower Hamlets still has among the lowest car ownership rates in London, just over 30% of households have access to one. And it’s not surprising why, when you consider that Tower Hamlets is also the most densely populated and has the youngest average age of any borough in the country. Cars are expensive to run and take up a lot of space.
Finally, the Mayor is doing nothing that the public can see to tackle rampant speeding or aggressively loud exhausts. Almost every time I leave the house I see car drivers going through red lights and having near misses with pedestrians and cyclists with impunity.
The truth is that the Mayor is serving only part of Tower Hamlets when he protects drivers and ignores the needs of people using other modes of transport.
The impact of inaction
The impact of inaction is serious: fewer people will feel confident cycling, more people will be injured walking around our streets, our air quality will remain poor, we will fall significantly behind our neighbouring boroughs and we will have a ‘postcode lottery’ on road safety which will hit the poorest – and less able to move to safer areas – hardest.
A Green vision for better transport policy in Tower Hamlets
We need to invest in simple and cheap infrastructure which protects our public realm from the worst impacts of cars and drivers’ behaviour and encourages and supports people who choose or have no choice but to walk, cycle or get public transport.
We need to do this to support vulnerable members of our society, to reduce isolation, to improve safety and accessibility.This isn’t just the right thing to do.
It is also an invest-to-save measure because a small amount of investment by the council is likely to deliver savings for public health, wellbeing and reduce the need for traffic enforcement.
The previous Labour administration wobbled on LTNs in the face of opposition and ended up pleasing nobody. Now in opposition, Labour has not had the courage to stand up to the Mayor against his dangerous attack on active travel infrastructure.
The Green Party is the only party active locally which has always supported progressive transport policy. On a wider level, we also supported the London Mayor to expand the highly effective ULEZ scheme when his own party was wavering.
We can’t let the Mayor Rahman drag Tower Hamlets back 20 years in transport policy. He is not ambitious for our safety and without firm opposition, he will continue to dismantle our chances of clean air and safer streets.