Active Travel hustings April 2026

Low Traffic Hackney joined forces with Hackney Cycling Campaign and Hackney Living Streets to hold Active Travel election hustings for the mayoral election in May 2026. Three candidates accepted our invite: Caroline Woodley, the current Labour mayor, Zoe Garbett from the Green Party, and Tareke Gregg from the Conservative Party.

We presented the three candidates with a set of five elections "asks" and asked if they supported them, or not. Here are the five asks and the responses from the mayoral candidates:
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1. Enable all children to safely walk and cycle to every primary and secondary school in Hackney There should be school streets (which 20,000 students currently benefit from, a little over half), filters, protected cycle lanes on main roads, or safe junctions for every primary and secondary school in Hackney by 2030. School streets already delivered without enforcement measures should be upgraded.

Result: all candidates put their hands up to support this.

2. Continue to roll out low-traffic neighbourhoods, and connect gateways between them to maximise their potential for safe cycling, walking and wheeling We wish to see the council accelerate rollout of area-wide traffic reduction schemes, so the benefits can be shared across the whole of the borough. Existing schemes with time-based restrictions (e.g. Lansdowne Drive, and Chatsworth Road) should be made operational 24/7. Safety measures cannot only be operational just some of the time. To maximise the benefits of these low traffic areas, gateways should be installed across boundary roads to allow safe cycling, walking and wheeling between them.

Result: Labour and Green candidates support this. The Conservative candidate does not

3. Reduce use of kerbside space for private car parking by 10% by 2030, and convert to more sustainable uses The council should adopt a formal strategy for reducing the use of kerbside space for private car parking, and instead use this valuable and limited resource for more sustainable and beneficial uses. This should include (on every residential street) parking for dockless micromobility vehicles, cycle hangars, and also traditional bike parking. It would also free up space for greening, car club spaces, and could speed up bus services.

Result: Labour and Green candidates support this. The Conservative candidate does not
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4. Connect Hackney’s town centres by tackling dangerous roads and junctions Many of Hackney's town centres are not currently connected to their neighbouring town centres, either in Hackney or in adjacent boroughs. We ask that the council work towards filling these gaps by 2030, creating new cycleways formed of streets made suitable for cycling through traffic filtering, or the installation of new protected cycle tracks.

TfL regularly produce a strategic analysis of London, identifying missing links in the cycle network. Building the missing Hackney routes shown in their 2023 analysis would achieve much of this ask.

Result: all candidates put their hands up to support this.

5. Reduce overall motor traffic volumes, and explore piloting a road pricing scheme in Hackney Too often roads and junctions in Hackney are optimised for maximum throughput of motor vehicles, leaving pedestrians and cyclists marginalised. There seems to be a reluctance to rebalance this, with impacts to essential services (such as buses) from congestion often cited as a justification for avoiding change. As such, we want the council to commit to a target for reducing overall motor traffic in the borough, to address the real root cause of congestion.

We also wish for the council to actively explore potential methods for distance-based charging of road users, particularly at times and locations when congestion is at its worst, to target this problem directly.

Result: Labour and Green candidates support this. The Conservative candidate does not

So, to summarize, Labour and Green candidates agreed to all five points. The Conservative candidate agreed only to points 1 and 4 but not the others

 
​One interesting point raised by Zoe Garbett during the evening was that she said there has to be a bigger emphasis on road safety when the council communicates plans for LTNs and traffic reduction.

For info, the Labour manifesto for the May elections which barely mentions transport is here and the Green manifesto which contains significant detail on transport is here. In the interests of fairness, Labour can point to their record in office in terms of delivering traffic reduction and active travel improvements, so perhaps not surprising. Also, Labour have promised detail will come in their new transport strategy and you can see progress on this here .