H&F wheelie bins

Members have been writing to us about council plans for wheelie bins in some areas, though parts of the borough already have them from a pilot scheme. Our interest is to ensure that they don’t damage the streetscape and the wider environment through excessive or unnecessary deployment of plastic, especially of the large and/or dayglo variety. 

The council circulated leaflets to 16,000 households in the borough announcing more wheelie bins and food waste containers. To date, there has been no suggestion of a public consultation process with residents before deployment, which hardly matches the philosophy of ‘Doing things with residents, not to them‘ listed against every council policy. There is a possible opportunity to reject them, but only after the fact, through an unpublished ‘reassessment’ process. Out would go your dustbins (if you have them) and in would come tall and bulky plastic bins – one for waste and one for recycling. You would also be given a smaller food waste container.

To take the food waste first – for the majority who do not have a compost bin, this container may be helpful. It would remove food from black bags and so reduce ripping and spillage. It can be locked to prevent animal access and the waste will be processed to make fertiliser. So far, so good.

The large bins are another matter.  Not only are they much taller than a regular dustbin at about 1.1m, and therefore much more obtrusive above a wall or fence, they are also bulky and take room in a front garden. For residents who pride themselves on an attractive and green garden this will come as a blow. Where are the bins to go? Who is to pay for the necessary re-paving? 

As the bins have to be wheeled out to be emptied their access has to be clear – no shielding them behind shrubbery. If you normally do not have a bin you would be required to have two. Bins would be the first thing that greets you and your visitors, and the ‘kerb appeal’ of your home and the whole street could be significantly harmed as the photos below show, reducing amenity, social and financial values, to the detriment of all – aside from an unspecified figure on the council’s bottom line.

Bin sizes

World’s fastest wheelie bin- 88km/h

The standard 240L dayglo green recycling bin is the largest size commonly available, and three – yes three – times the size of the a conventional 80L bin, which is about half the height, and one-sixth of the weight – empty. It can hold five bin bags, or the weight of a large grown man, as many a comedy sketch – or recent world speed record – confirms. The black ‘waste’ bin at 140L is nearly twice the size of a conventional bin. This represents an aggregate of just about five times the bin storage space you probably have now, and in a world increasingly short of space, and trying to reduce waste of all sorts, appears to send a very odd message.

C9 safety record – collision rate involving pedal cycles King Street
(C9 route only)

The council’s short-notice decision to make C9 permanent was reported in HammersmithToday in March. That would be less significant if the January to June Key Decisions List had mentioned it, or if the cycle and walking commission had been in the loop.

This key decision was made on 6th March – on the cusp of a legal minimum five working days notice, but despite being ‘key’ was not sufficiently important to be discussed at the 17 minute Cabinet meeting that day.

We are in the business of being a ‘critical friend’, as a former chair once put it, and here we need to be critical. An apparent reluctance to encourage public – or even cabinet – scrutiny in such a significant decision making process is concerning. Let’s be clear: we expect a well-designed, safe and efficient public transport system for everyone, and the C9 bidirectional design unnecessarily precludes that simple and democratic vision, marginalising those unable to cycle – and that’s quite a few. We might also reflect on the fact that bicycles are ‘vehicles’ in law, and while cycling is classed as ‘active’, it remains a form of private transport being favoured over actual public transport, while at the same time being encouraged to use a less safe infrastructure.

Without independent design and vetting, the council created and reported on it’s own survey in October/November 2022, on which the decision appears to rest. The detailed report has been redacted which raises its own questions, but the summary is problematic too. Firstly it’s a small self-selecting sample of around 700 people, of whom only around half live in the borough. Secondly, 45% of the able-bodied, and 22% of the disabled respondents said their preferred mode of transport was cycling. But only 3-4% of the public actually cycle according to TfL’s cycling counts, casting respondents as ‘keyboard warriors’, unrepresentative, or both.

The survey data, redacted as it is, shows a design successful enough to split the public 92% against (drivers), 89% for (cyclists), with 68% of disabled respondents not regarding C9 as beneficial. Overall, only 52% of the respondents thought C9 to have a positive impact, and last time that percentage voted for something of significance, there was some notable buyer’s remorse.

Safety

It’s been widely reported by others that this two-way design is, rather then the moniker ‘safer’, actually the more dangerous cycle path, as the accident rate (above) confirms. We’ve disregarded the council’s collision data supporting its decision, as it erroneously compares three years of pre-C9 accidents with less than one year with, while failing to normalise the data as an accident rate, per the chart above. Nevertheless, it still shows a higher percentage of cycle-related accidents since C9.

The risks were evident before implementation as a result of advice from transport experts, including those that have studied Dutch and Danish implementations (the latter removing bidirectional paths in urban areas over a quarter of a century ago on safety grounds), through the council’s own unflattering public engagement exercise (painfully extracted by FOI), it’s own Walking/Cycling Commission – which was not consulted in detail – it’s own Disabled Residents Commission, and, last but not least, us!  80% of accidents continue to happen at junctions, and much vaunted segregation does little other than provide a false sense of security for unwary users, to which we might partly attribute the increased accident rate.

The Disabled Residents Commission didn’t support the existing ‘temporary’ scheme, or the bus bypass concept, their abandoned bus shelters, or staggered pedestrian controlled crossings, and were as surprised as we were to see the 22% claim above. For reference, TfL’s latest data says 83% of disabled and 82% of able-bodied Londoners have never used a bike.

We put these and further specific points to Cllr. Holder, responsible for this policy, who passed them on to officers for detailed response, yet to be received.  At the moment, we have no idea what a proposed ‘permanent’ C9 looks like, such is the lack of communication and consultation on this important transport artery.

Updated situation, post-pandemic

Breathe London solar-powered wireless AQ monitor – close up on a lamp post on C9. These are Clarity node S sensors

As an off-beat way to mark the half-century since that iconic song Can the CAN topped the charts in June 1973, LBHF has sponsored air quality monitors that were installed on roadsides near a number of primary schools, and on the C9 cycleway in the last six months. The short and long-term numbers show that air quality isn’t very poor as claimed, suggesting instead that the Clean Air Neighbourhoods policy should be canned, or rather better, renamed and prioritised towards the basket of the other proposed environmental improvements in an unfortunately misnamed policy. With London Climate Action week around the corner, this is especially true when the extra miles, economic and other downsides of the proposed LTN’s are considered.

The policy aims to improve the overall environment in H&F, and who can deny that’s a good idea? But the unnecessary LTN part of the policy is likely to make the air worse in the worst hot spots, and the PR fails the fact-check, which we explore further below.

Our interactive map of ‘BreatheLondon’ sensors coloured by sponsor, May 2023. Click for more detail

50 monitors in H&F were supplied by Breathe London, as part of a 430+ fleet across London supported by Imperial’s ERG (Environmental Research Group). When they produce data, which can be intermittent because they’re radio linked, they appear to give reasonably consistent results in line with the council’s ‘regulatory’ stations HF4 and HF5 at Shepherds Bush Green and the Broadway, plus a new one, HF7 by Frank Banfield Park, which are run professionally by Ricardo Environmental.  Those stations are rather more sophisticated and reliable, covering more pollutants than the NO₂ and PM2.5 measured by the new monitors, which are nevertheless of most interest. We’re told that the council is also supplementing these with a private network of sensors, details of which are unavailable, though this from 2021 turns up in searches. In this article, we set the scene for an ongoing citizen science project, building on a previous article

A good news story

Long Term AQ Trends 1970-2020
[ Chief Medical Officer’s 2022 Air pollution report ]

Contrary to many reports, since the H&F Air Quality commission first reported in 2016 (and the 2015 publication of the KCL report the council relies on), average nitrogen oxide levels in the borough have nearly halved, in line with the national figures shown adjacent. The decades-long steep straight-line downward trends previously described, suggests a proportionate and realistic plan is needed to address causes of the remaining local issues, rather than the imposition of unhelpful LTN’s.

PM2.5, though a quarter of the level it was in 1970, is still said by the WHO to be the main concern. While the council’s CAN page describes a good range of issues, it relies on short term pandemic-skewed data to shore up a fragile argument, ignoring long-term trends. If the graph adjacent represented rates of infant mortality, road accidents, heart attack, cancer rates or obesity, everyone would be singing from the rooftops, celebrating such a great success.

‘Clean Air’ vs. Roads

King Street shop fronts

250-252 King Street

Former Nicholas Mee showroom

123a King Street

Former Brackenbury Arms

Little Vegas King St

Game of Throwing 20220922

91 Hammersmith Grove

In recent months we, our members, affiliates and others have noticed an increase in unsympathetic shop fronts or public realm land-grabs adjacent to shops, particularly in King Street, but elsewhere in the borough too. We are of course aware of the plight of the high street, an issue we wrote about in 2019, but the pandemic seems to have accelerated a slip in standards.  The pictures also demonstrate an unfortunate correlation between these slippages, metal roller shutters (with or without graffiti), and some of the better historic buildings, sharpening the discordancy. Shopfronts require the same constraints as rear extensions – ‘subservient to the existing building’.  A strong building presence at ground level – with visible walls between the shop openings – can accommodate a variety of shopfront designs without losing the integrity of the building design.

Some larger chains are showing is that it’s quite possible to build new frontages sympathetically, while maintaining enough corporate branding to meet the business needs, though it’s unclear how much cajoling the various local authorities undertook to achieve these results.  Unfortunately we’re not seeing quite enough of this in parts of Hammersmith – yet.

Tesco and Pret Holland Park Ave

Shoreditch Pret

Paintbox Studios and Coffeeology: Nancye Goulden Award 2019

Longstanding members will recall the Nancye Goulden award we gave to the Nicholas Mee showroom in 2013, a “stylish minimalist modern frontage”, which appeared to be a high point, with the nearby Ginger Pig also awarded in the same year.  In 2019, helping to highlight what can be done in our high streets, we awarded the two adjacent shops shown at the western end of King Street, but the eastern end remains a rather different matter.

Nancye Goulden Award 2013 – The Ginger Pig

Nancye Goulden Award 2013 – Nicholas Mee Aston Martin showroom

A few years after the award, Nicholas Mee sold up, possibly feeling – correctly as it turned out – the zeitgeist turning significantly against car ownership in general, big-engined luxury car ownership in particular, notwithstanding the skilled jobs involved.  The workshop in Wellesley Avenue was also sold, leaving a site that’s been fought over tooth-and-nail since.  These days, the mere suggestion of a car-related enterprise locally may have segments of the population foaming at the mouth, though the residents of Wellesley Avenue probably still reflect fondly on the glamorous metal formerly adorning their neighbourhood. We digress.

World Air Quality October 2022 – IQAir, including H&F and Breathe London data

LBHF Clean Air Neighbourhoods

We expect the council’s Clean Air Neighbourhoods policy to be a well-intentioned and researched policy, with its implications and unintended consequences carefully considered. There are good things in here, such as planting more street trees, improvements to street safety, and some incentives intended to discourage car use. However, on examination, few measures actually relate directly to ‘the name on the tin’ – air quality – and the one that does, only relates to around 12% of the air quality problem in Hammersmith according to Public Heath England’s figures below. This week’s smell of wood-burning stoves reminds us that the main problem here is PM2.5 particulates. Rather than deal with that, this policy would concentrate nitrogen oxide pollution where it’s highest – on main roads.

Welcome to the infamous Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) debate that dare not speak its name – our council knows how toxic that is. Instead it has decided to use a heavy-handed mix of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, deployed with highly inflammatory headline-grabbing phrases such as TOXIC, SILENT KILLER, DEATH, in a decades-old ‘big stick’ approach. The claim of 40,000 UK annual deaths is a misappropriation of the data, which actually relates to life expectancy. Privately the council still uses the term ‘LTN’, and funds them instead of schools, with Section 106 contributions.

Along with a proposed bridge toll, this binary “clean” vs. “dirty” social-media style campaign is beginning to make us look like Fortress Hammersmith, rather than the well-connected borough we appreciate, predicated on the idea that other boroughs wouldn’t think of putting up their barriers similarly… would they?  Hounslow’s so-called South Chiswick Liveable Neighbourhood  is one such controversial and euphemistically named control scheme already on our doorstep, which points to Hammersmith bridge closure as part of the problem.

The wider London picture: LTNs can increase, rather than decrease vehicle miles

Evidence from the controversial South Fulham Traffic, Congestion & Pollution Reduction (TCPR) scheme shows that the policy of diverting traffic can make it worse overall, particularly on main and boundary roads such as the A4, or to places not measured, out of sight and out of mind. This was confirmed recently by widely-reported DfT figures showing that total vehicle miles driven in the ten inner London boroughs that introduced LTNs or equivalent schemes in 2020 rose by an average 11.4% in 2021 vs. 8.9% where they hadn’t. This is one of the reasons the TCPR has had to be extended to the western side of Wandsworth Bridge Road, but the recent extension is already reported to be causing gridlock in Wandsworth itself and on Wandsworth Bridge and New Kings Roads.

Kings College and the council’s own data shows that our backstreets are already as much as 50% less polluted than main roads. Clean Air Neighbourhoods might therefore be seen as a divisive and discriminatory policy addressing the wrong target, by aiming to improve air quality in areas where it’s not a significant problem, and diverting traffic to main roads, where it would worsen the sometimes already sub-standard air quality, slowing the movement of public transport and other traffic, reinforcing last year’s similarly ill-conceived bus lane removals, and concentrating any pollution on those trying to “do the right thing” by using active travel modes – the bus, walking or cycling – or perhaps living alongside. The deeper dive at the foot of the article provides more detail. 

Daily congestion in King St (October 2022)

It’s not very useful claiming that H&F residents will be unaffected, as some councillors have, with oddly mixed messaging, potentially encouraging residents’ car use.  Let’s look past our own noses, and imagine other councils following suit and imposing their own set of rules, having had H&F traffic displaced to them.

Lock-down London would be divided up into a competing patchwork of complicated and differently administered fiefdoms, that no business or occasional visitor would want to, or in many cases be able to, cross – at least at any reasonable level of administration or cost – and Fortress London would become ever more a playground for the super-rich.

This represents a spectacular own goal from a council claiming to be “Doing things with residents, not to them”, and for whom it takes over 3700 words to explain just their South Fulham TCPR scheme (that’s 50% longer than this article, which is hardly short!). Unsurprisingly, the TCPR now has its own 7000-signature petition.

Going electric

In an era rapidly going electric (50% of new vehicles are projected to be electric in 3 years time), rather than the council’s retro big-stick approach, a far more effective policy would involve the carrot of improving public transport from it’s pitiful speeds by ungumming the main roads, and making it cheaper and more accessible, as they do in Germany. TfL has just done the exact opposite.

Instead, this policy would make it worse in the hotspots: the five most polluted spots measured in the 2022 air quality report are Hammersmith Road East/West (HF11/46), The Town Centre, Wood Lane (HF16), and of course the Broadway, all locations where traffic is already largely at a standstill. Amazingly, for a supposed ‘clean air’ policy there appear no exceptions for EV’s; this is actually an anti four-wheel policy – ‘clean air’ is a marketing ploy.

In the month of COP27, the council conflated air quality with climate change in order to ‘make it relevant’, and then casually targeted predetermined usual suspects, fitting a tired and over-politicised narrative. The two don’t always overlap, especially geographically as we wrote before, and sometimes even work in opposition, as described below.  But where the effects of climate change and air pollution do collide is in the ‘global south’ as the map above clearly illustrates, and, by encouraging pollution exports, this policy helps reinforce the situation. Do we want those countries, recently awarded ‘loss and damage’ payments from the developed world for climate change, to need to add loss and damage from our exported air pollution too?

New Civil Engineer recently reported that the bridge stabilisation has progressed and that specialist concrete has been poured into the cast iron pedestals to prevent them collapsing.  This means that the bridge is safer for the next stage of repair, which we mentioned in the last email. The stabilisation works are scheduled to complete by the end of February 2023.

It’s worth mentioning again that while the funding arrangement for the rebuilding has been determined, actual funds remain scarce, and the long term funding and maintenance model is undecided. The council prefers to package it up so it can be put into a trust and managed at arms length.

The next step is diversion of a gas main at a cost of £5m, and the letting of contracts so that works on the actual major repairs can begin. We have requested copy of the £200k feasibility report into the Foster/COWI temporary bridge to better understand details of the proposals.

There’s been some press and politics around a proposed bridge toll as a way to close the gap in funding for the rebuild, and whether or not residents would be expected to pay. A historic problem with tolls has been that it cost a significant percentage of the actual toll to collect, and with so much cash sloshing around, there was often significant fraud. Newer technology, such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) would presumably lessen these overheads, if not the displeasure.

We are grateful to the Barnes Bugle for alerting us to a detailed video from Mott’s explaining the whole process for those interested in the technicalities:

Members of your committee, affiliates and resident groups around two primary schools – Avonmore and Flora Gardens – were concerned to see the revival of an unreconstructed Community Schools Programme on the recent council cabinet agenda.

Community Schools Programme – proposed Avonmore Primary School. Note that most greenery is actually Marcus Garvey Park

The agenda item was in effect crystallising the May 2022 Labour manifesto into council policy. However, we wrote 4 letters to the council and an article on the subject in 2020, highlighting concerns about the proposal to develop school land, and doubted that the policy was either wise or even justified on a number of specific points of planning and development practice.  Furthermore we are aware that other options have been tabled at both locations and rejected by the council.  Early consultations were curtailed by the pandemic, and specific promises were made by the council to pause and continue the conversation before proceeding.

To date, this has not happened, although some undocumented discussions amongst various parties have taken place. Under the circumstances we saw little option but to make a formal deputation to the council meeting, re-iterating community concerns, and making the following points:

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On 28th June, the new Local and Affiliate News page (and homepage sidebar) provided news of the parliamentary adjournment debate initiated by the MP for Putney, Fleur Anderson, and contributed to by our MP Andy Slaughter, and Sarah Olney, MP for Richmond Park, on the subject of bridge restoration funding.

What ensued was a familiar ping-pong between the junior minister on one side, relying on a somewhat worn line that because it’s called Hammersmith Bridge it’s LBHF’s responsibility, and in a pincer movement, MP’s on the other side trying to winkle open the Treasury coffers, making the point that the closure effects are widespread in South West London by reference to Putney Society comments and others, and listing other bridges that are funded in different ways, mostly by TfL, in a ‘policy…all over the place’. It was also made clear that stabilisation work had been started at some LBHF financial risk, given the Task Force delays and machinations around the so-called ‘business case’ that we previously reported.

Worryingly, the business case is now referred to specifically in terms of the stabilisation works, and a further business case is now being requested for the major works to release the established 1/3 government funding. Given unimpeded government largesse elsewhere, and an excessively drawn-out process previously, this might be seen as a further delaying tactic, the politics of which are unclear. The point was made that a similar debate with a similar ping-pong & result occurred a year ago, and that the current TfL funding crisis is hardly helping matters, given its 1/3 agreed funding responsibility. The full debate text is here.

Reference was made to the Prior Information Notice (PIN), which we tweeted at the end of May for expressions of interest in the full restoration works, providing us the hope and expectation that a contractor and plan can be primed, notwithstanding funding. New Civil Engineer reports that 28 organisations have expressed an interest.