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"Why are the council not listening to residents who hate LTNs?" "Local residents want to be able to drive but the council has implemented LTNs without asking us" These are things we've heard many times from some residents. But what's the truth about the popularity of LTNs in Hackney? Firstly, the most obvious point is that no-one likes traffic. Car drivers, bus drivers and passengers, cyclists, walkers, people who live in or near busy roads. Absolutely no-one likes traffic, and cutting traffic is universally popular - everyone wants less of it! And the fact is that to cut traffic, many of us need to drive less to reduce the number of cars on the roads, which is not rocket science, but worth stating. As the saying goes, if you’re stuck in traffic, remember that you are the traffic! In theory, given the universal unpopularity of traffic, you would think any changes to reduce traffic would be popular.... As far as we know, there's never been Hackney specific research done on this subject. Arguably this would be a good thing, but it doesn't exist yet. There is however some London-wide research, more on that in a minute. So, to get a picture of residents' views on LTNs we have to look at other evidence and draw conclusions. Not perfect, but there you go. How do Hackney residents get around? We know, from the last Census, that 65% of Hackney households have no access to a car. That's a borough wide figure, but if you dig down you'll see variations at ward level. So, in Shoreditch the figure is closer to 81% with no access to a car, and in Homerton North the figure is 52%. But in every ward in Hackney the majority of households have no access to a car. Now we know it’s not as simple as saying car owners dislike LTNs and vice versa. We know of plenty of Hackney residents who do own a car but fully support LTNs, and in fact have told us that the LTNs have helped them reduce the number of car trips they make, either because it's just less convenient to drive, or because it's more pleasant and safe to walk or cycle. But knowing that the vast majority of Hackney residents do not have access to a car, it does shine a light on the “open back our roads” mentality, in terms of just how representative they are in reality.  If we look at how residents travel around the borough, we get an even more extreme view of things. 52% of all trips in Hackney are by foot, 15.5% by bus, and 8% by bike, meaning 87% of resident trips are made by walking, cycling or bus. Only 8.5% of resident trips are by car. If you're travelling around Hackney by foot or bike, we can safely assume your journey will be more pleasant, safe and quicker if there are lots of LTNs around. Buses are more complicated, as they tend to use main roads, and our main roads are still too busy with private vehicles, and bus priority measures are not strong enough yet. However, there are numerous bus routes that are now significantly quicker due to surrounding LTNs, including Stoke Newington Church St and Albion Road, Amhurst Road, Chatsworth Road, Whiston Road and Richmond Road. Overall, given how residents travel, which is overwhelmingly NOT by car, it's a safe assumption that the benefits of LTNs easily outweigh any negatives for most people, making them something people generally approve of. The argument that LTNs make main roads busier by moving traffic from small side roads onto main roads is covered in our blog post on LTNs and wealth. Elections Looking at more hard data, we have the results of the last council and Mayoral elections in 2022. Why is this important? Because Hackney council implemented many LTNs during and straight after Covid in 2020 and 2021. If residents didn't like the new LTNs they would have voted against Labour and for parties which opposed any road filters at the next local elections. That includes the Hackney Independents who were set up to oppose recent LTNs and the Conservatives. Labour won 50 of the 57 ward seats up for grabs with 59% of the vote, the Greens won 2 and the Conservatives held 5 seats they already had with 10% of the vote. Most notably, Hackney Independents, including some very vocal anti-LTN campaigners, won zero seats with just over 1% of the vote. The only assumption we can draw is that LTNs are overwhelmingly popular with people who voted in the 2022 local elections. This is, as they say, democracy in action. At the same election in 2022, the Labour Mayoral candidate Philip Glanville, an active supporter of traffic reduction schemes and better cycling infrastructure, won with 59% of the votes. The Conservative candidate who ran on an anti-LTN platform, received 13.4% of the votes. The following year after Philip Glanville resigned, Caroline Woodley (Labour) won the mayoral by-election with 50% of the vote, followed by the pro-LTN Green candidate Zoe Garbett with 24%. The anti-LTN Conservative candidate received just 13.6% of the vote. Again, the votes for Hackney mayor strongly suggest residents like traffic reduction measures such as LTNs. What does all that mean? It shows, quite unambiguously, that following the introduction of many LTNs during the Covid years, Hackney residents voted very clearly for candidates who supported LTNs, and the candidates standing against LTNs performed extremely poorly. Like, really badly. Research In 2023 a large opinion research and polling company (Redfield and Wilton Strategies) carried out London specific polling to gauge opinion on transport policies including ULEZ and LTNs. Professional polling is important because unlike self-selecting consultations, it is designed so that respondents reflect the views and demographics of the population as a whole. They concluded that 58% of respondents support LTNs while only 17% were opposed to them.   Rishi Sunak commissioned one piece of nationwide research in theory to support his pro-driver campaign. The 2024 DfT report, which Sunak had hoped would show how unpopular LTNs were, actually showed that in London 53% supported them, against 26% who didn't. The report concluded: “The available evidence from the UK indicates that LTNs are effective in achieving outcomes of reducing traffic volumes within their zones while adverse impacts on boundary roads appear to be limited” and crucially: “There appears to be limited evidence of adverse impacts on boundary roads, but residents are more likely than not to think that schemes have added traffic congestion and queues to these nearby roads.”  Research by Climate Barometer, which tracks opinion on climate policy, shows that LTNs are in fact more popular with local residents than politicians think they are. This applies to climate change policies in general, but specifically on LTNs many politicians have a perception which is far from reality, suggesting they should be bolder with such policies, not running scared of a vocal minority of voters.
Consultations Some residents point at specific LTN consultations and think that proves their unpopularity. The big problem with this way of thinking is that consultations are self-selecting, meaning only those who feel strongly complete them. In every Hackney consultation we have seen car drivers and older people are very over represented, and younger people are extremely under represented. For example see our recent blogpost on the Hoxton LTN consultation. Most people just don't bother filling in consultations, meaning they tend to attract vocal minorities with an axe to grind. People who feel they have something tangible to lose are naturally more motivated than people who are being asked to imagine abstract future benefits that they often haven't ever actually experienced This obviously skews the results. Consultations are not "polls" or "referendums", they are a basic way of getting feedback from some self selecting residents. The council has thankfully made progress on engaging better with residents rather than just using consultations. Whichever approach the council takes to “listening to residents”, it's important to remember that listening is not the same as doing exactly what one particular group wants. It’s often said that “the council didn’t listen to me when I completed the consultation” as if their voice was the only one that counts. Clearly, that’s not the case. The size of the opposition As mentioned, there’s a vocal group of residents who oppose LTNs and any restrictions on the right to drive. But just how big is this group? Well, its clearly impossible to get accurate numbers, but there is some data available. The late 2025 petition against LTNs attracted 1144 signatures. Given there are about 260,000 residents living in Hackney, the number who signed the petition is 0.4% of the population. Less than half of one percent. Looking at the “Open Back Our Roads” protests outside the town hall in early 2026, MyLondon reported “dozens” of protestors. Whilst the pro-car Hackney Citizen reported “several hundred” protested outside the town hall, although that number is clearly a guess and is an over-estimate from what we observed. The much publicised “Open Back Our Roads” WhatsApp group currently has a total of 40 members. On Facebook the well publicised “Horrendous Hackney Road Closures” group, running since 2020, has a total of just over 7,000 members. The group contains many members who don't actually live in the Borough at all, but even if they were all residents that would still only amount to 2.8% of Hackney’s population. It's easy to see how members of that group could assume that everyone feels the same about LTNs, but they forget that only a tiny percent of Hackney residents are in the group. Conclusion Looking at the available evidence, it's impossible not to conclude that LTNs in Hackney are popular with the majority of residents. Yes, there is a very clear (and vocal) minority who oppose them, but it's important to recognise that this group is not representative of the vast majority of people who live in Hackney. There are no electoral dividends to gain by opposing LTNs, but plenty of supporters that could be put off by this. In the run up to the May local elections, all candidates and parties would be sensible to recognise this.
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