Extinction Rebellion Southwark’s Lobbying Group have responded to Southwark Council’s request for consultation on their draft Sustainable Transport Strategy in February 2023. The draft Sustainable Transport Strategy sets out the council’s approach to improve people’s experience of travel to, from and around the borough.
Unfortunately, while we agree with the vision the council sets out, we believe the draft Sustainable Transport Strategy (STS) in it current form is wholly insufficient.
Southwark have failed as a council to capitalise on their political mandate for action following the local elections. The STS is a vague set of aspirations, with no SMART targets or action plan. Community engagement on it is close to meaningless, as there are no specifics to engage on. We are disappointed that the so-called consultation for individuals to respond to is little more than a survey on transport preferences.
XRS’s Lobbying Group co-hosted a community discussion on the Sustainable Transport Strategy in January 2023 with Mums for Lungs and Southwark Cyclists. We believe that Southwark Council should:
- Produce a credible plan to deliver the London-wide objectives set by TfL and the Mayor of London in the Mayor’s Transport Strategy. Other boroughs are making progress on this; e.g. Camden, Hackney and Islington. Southwark has instead published a vague strategy with no clarity on how it connects to the London-wide plan.
- Capitalise on the political mandate following the local election. Other councils have acted quickly; e.g. Lambeth published their Kerbside strategy. We’re in a climate and ecological emergency – the council needs to start acting like it.
- Improve the consultation process. The current individual “consultation” barely asks for feedback on the STS, and is instead a survey on how people experience or prioritise mobility. It poses false dichotomies in either/or questions to which the answer is often both, such as: ‘If we build more cycle lanes more people will cycle’ vs ‘If we reduce the number of cars on our roads more people will cycle’. It’s unclear what value this has for those running the consultation, or what bearing it has on the STS.
Please find the full consultation response that XRS’s Lobbying Group submitted to the group consultation form (which gave the option of filling out a Word doc, as opposed to an online survey) below.