There are local elections in May this year which will determine who runs Hackney Council for the next four years, and so who is in charge of local roads.

Please come and join us in holding the Mayoral candidates to account on Thursday 16th April, in conjunction with Hackney Cycling Campiagn and Hackney Living Streets.

The hustings are at Pembury Community Centre on Dalston Lane, starting at 7.30pm. No booking required! 

Car parking might seem like a pretty dry and boring topic, but it has surprisingly wide-ranging impacts. 

This blogpost runs though why we should all care about car parking, and how Hackney Council can use it to better manage local traffic.

Why Care?

​Let’s start with the obvious question: If (like 65% of households here) you don’t own a car, why should you care about car parking at all?

Firstly, parked cars take a huge amount of public space from our streets, space which should be there for everyone and not just those who drive.  In London on-street car parking amounts to well over 1,400 hectares of space (equivalent to 10 Hyde Parks in size).  Yet in Hackney only 35% of households own a car, and the travel mode share for private driving is just 8.5%.

​The ‘opportunity cost’ of parking
 
So it is a fair question whether allowing all that public space to go to storage of private cars is the best or most equitable thing we could do with it.  
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Could it be put to better use, for example as bus lanes, outdoor dining to support businesses, sustainable drainage (‘raingardens’), cycle lanes, better/safer sight lines, safe crossings, parklets, street trees, bike hire bays, bike storage, or any number of other alternative uses?

The Council has already started to recognise this with its Parking and Enforcement Plan. But we think they need to go further and faster.  Have a look at some specific examples below.
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Some Examples:

​Repurposing parking spaces to provide sufficient space for hire bikes can keep them off the pavement, which improves accessibility of our streets and encourages use. Hackney Council has done well with this, but many more hire bike bays are needed.

​​An example of a Hackney street where parking directly compromises the conditions of other road users. A one-way street with a contraflow cycle lane filled with parking, which pushes cyclists into the ‘door zone’, or into oncoming traffic, and so provides poor conditions which discourage inclusive active travel. Imagine how much safer and more comfortable it would be if that side of parking were removed and dedicated to making a safe cycle lane.

​Hackney Council has recognised that lack of cycle storage blocks uptake of cycling and is doubling on-street cycle hangar storage from 2023-26. But there is still a chronic shortage with over 6000 people on the waiting list in 2024. Street car parking permits, on the other hand, are issued immediately and have no waiting lists or limits.  A cycle hangar that fits into one car parking space holds 6 bikes.

​Reclaiming the space taken by parking offers the opportunity to truly transform many public spaces from car-dominated streets into pleasant places where people want to relax and spend time, like this street in Camden (Alfred Place). The streetviews show the same street before and after parking removal and transformation.  Such radical transformations help build support for change.
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​Parking encourages driving
 
The second reason we should care, is that the overwhelming majority of homes in Hackney have no private space to store vehicles, so providing so much public space for the purpose of private car-storage is directly enabling higher levels of car ownership and use. We know this leads to harms; busy congested streets, slower buses, road danger and pollution.

Thirdly, the availability of home and destination car parking influences people’s decision whether to use a car.  You are less likely to drive a journey if you can’t be sure you can park close to your destination, or if your ‘home’ space will be gone when you get back.  Available and convenient parking induces demand to drive and directly contributes to the level of traffic on our streets.

56% of motor traffic on Hackney’s streets is local (i.e. starting or finishing the journey in the Borough), meaning reducing local traffic is a very important element of improving conditions on all our roads, including our main roads which suffer the worst effects of car dominance.

​How to better manage parking to control local traffic
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Whilst car parking can undoubtedly cause harms, a level of parking is essential.  Some residents need cars and sufficient visitor parking is important for accessibility, for some businesses, and for many services.  So how can this be managed better? 
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Hackney is already covered with Controlled Parking Zones; this is the basic first step to having any control. But where should we go from here?

1. ​Devise a ‘kerbside strategy’: Stop the default assumption that kerbsides get filled with parking. Have a coherent strategy as to what mix of kerbside uses to prioritise, and then work towards it. Lambeth are a good example of strategic thinking on this.  

2. Use permit pricing as a tool to control harms: Permits in inner London are far too cheap!  Parking spaces here typically have a market value up to 10 times higher than the annual cost of a resident’s permit.  Permit costs should better reflect the market rate.  Anything less is a subsidy to harm (and mostly going to richer people).  Increasing the price also helps to compensate cash-strapped councils for lost revenue that may come from reducing the total amount of parking.  Price must also reflect vehicle pollution, vehicle size and weight as these factors contribute to road damage and danger.

​3. Embrace (a little) ‘parking stress’ (i.e. when a parking zone has high occupancy rates making it more difficult to find parking spaces very close to home): Parking Departments tend to view parking stress as a problem to be fixed and so provide too much space.  For example in a recent consultation on Zone F parking in Hoxton, which created new parking spaces, the Parking Team said: ‘Due to the level of stress highlighted in the profile report, a decision was made to identify locations where parking bays could be added’.  

​But there is no legal obligation for the Council to provide public space for most residents to park private vehicles, only a power to do so if they wish. 
 
Take a leaf from the Mayor of Pontevedra’s book:

The problem with this approach of course is practical and political.  As long as Councils are selling people permits, they (not unreasonably) feel they should be given a convenient space to park… But this can be fixed by our next point; controlling the number of permits issued.
 
​4. Cap the number of permits: The single biggest way the Council can use parking policy as a tool to reduce traffic is to stop issuing unlimited numbers of permits for controlled parking zones. 

We have mentioned that there is no legal obligation to provide people with public space to park their private cars, so don’t treat this as if it is a basic right.  Almost all new homes in Hackney are already built as ‘car-free’ meaning they have no parking and no right to on-street permits.  This is not a new concept, it is just a case of starting to apply it to new residents who move in to existing homes.  

How a Permit Cap could work

• A kerbside strategy would work out how best to use the kerbside, and how much car parking we want it to provide. 
• A permit cap can stop more permits being issued than the available space can accommodate. Parking stress is managed at optimal levels.
• The cap would initially be set to allow all existing permitholders a permit.  Nobody would lose an existing parking right. The cap would improve parking conditions for those with permits, without giving over more space.
• Over time, the level of cap can be reduced by natural wastage from people who move away or don’t renew. 
• If the number of permits issued reaches the cap, any new residents applying must go on a waiting list until a space comes available from a resident moving out or not renewing (just as they currently do for cycle hangar spaces). 
• A waiting list could also allow the Council to better prioritise permits to those more in need of them by using prioritisation criteria if they wish.  Blue badge holders would of course be exempt.

 
Are parking permit caps legal and possible?

Yes! There are already English Councils which do this (including Bristol, Manchester, West Sussex and others).  The most extensive is Brighton and Hove Council who currently cap permits in 5 zones and operate waiting lists when the cap is reached.
 
The magic of this policy is that nobody loses their existing permit right, and yet it still allows Councils to control the number of vehicles in an area over time. 
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A more activist Parking Policy

Whilst some councils, including Hackney, have started to recognise the role of parking in reducing car use, it is still an underutilised traffic reduction tool.  We have declared a ‘climate emergency' here and this powerful control is entirely within the power of the Council.

In order to solve the crisis of too many cars on local streets, and congested main roads, the Council needs to use every tool available. This means prioritising kerbside uses that benefit sustainable active travel and climate adaptation, and it means consciously using parking as a control to prevent ever-increasing numbers of vehicles.

Low Traffic Hackney would like the Council to use parking more forcefully to reduce local car use and to prioritise alternatives.

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Groups opposed to LTNs sometimes like to claim they benefit rich people on side streets whilst poor people on main roads suffer.  It’s a snappy soundbite, but is there any truth to it? We run through the arguments, and the reality, below:

​Myth 1: Poor and working class residents are more likely to use cars so they are more affected by road restrictions

Not True! Car ownership is heavily weighted towards richer groups.  

Data from the 2021 census shows of all regions across England and Wales, London has the highest proportion of households with no cars or vans (42%).  However, when you look at the poorest households, even fewer own cars.

​Household car ownership rises with household income, with around a quarter of households with an income under £15,000 having access to a car, compared to almost three quarters (73%) of households with an income over £75,000.  London residents with access to a car are disproportionately aged between 45 and 64, in full-time employment or retired, and living in high income households.   

Of course these figures are London-wide and include the impact of greater car dependency in Outer London.  In all areas of Hackney, car ownership across all income groups is much lower, with 65% of Hackney households having no access to a car.  In some areas of the Borough such as Shoreditch, under 20% of all households have a car, meaning car ownership amongst the poorest people here amounts to a very tiny proportion of the population.

The truth is cars are expensive! It is estimated that it costs about £3500 per year to run a car in Hackney. Poorer people are less likely to use cars, not more likely. 

People in lowest income groups are far more likely to be on the night bus to work, earning a living on a bicycle, or walking to get around.  

However as with all groups in society, some poorer residents do still own and use cars for a variety of reasons.  Policies which prioritise alternatives to car use are difficult and do involve compromises and adjustment. But existing conditions are incredibly harmful, and more deprived groups are disproportionately affected by these road harms. 

The Council should be concentrating on reducing harms and inequalities, and helping behaviour change by opening up viable alternatives such as safe car-free routes to school which save families money and time.
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All groups benefit from and deserve safe, pollution-free and healthy streets.  It just suits some campaign groups and better off people who use cars to pretend LTNs ‘punish the poor’ in order to present more socially acceptable ways to oppose the policy.
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Myth 2: LTNs only cover the rich areas

Not True! In Hackney LTNs cover and strongly benefit more deprived areas. 

The first point here is that where LTNs are implemented is a matter of policy that is largely separate from whether or not they work.  If LTNs are only implemented in rich areas, they will be unfair.  This is an argument for ensuring fairly implemented LTNs, not no LTNs. 

But this is absolutely not what has happened in Hackney anyway, where the Council has put LTNs across many of the most deprived parts of the Borough. In fact research has shown Hackney’s LTNs are the most socially equal in London, covering areas which are less affluent and more ethnically diverse.

It is also important to understand the majority of Hackney’s social housing estates were originally designed, or have long since been converted into LTNs to prevent through-traffic. This is not a social injustice, it is just a sensible design to minimise harms. Evidence shows extending this has massive benefits for everyone.

Myth 3: LTNs only benefit middle class people. Poorer people live on main roads. They push pollution to main roads.

Not True! There is minimal difference in the population on main roads and minor roads in inner London. Pollution on main roads has fallen. Road harms such as air pollution and road danger disproportionately affect poorer people and those in deprivation. Reducing harms disproportionately benefits those groups.

Evidence shows around 90% of all groups in inner London live off main roads with around 10% of all groups on them.  There is minimal difference in the ethnic mix on or off main roads here. 
 
Pollution on main roads in Hackney has fallen rapidly since recent LTNs were introduced, and is continuing to fall.  Wider evidence shows LTNs reduce air pollution both within and on boundary roads.

Whilst we know well designed LTNs don’t have unequal impacts, existing road harms most certainly do.  Both road casualties and exposure to air pollution are strongly linked to deprivation and so targeting LTNs to more deprived areas can have huge public health benefits.
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​Hackney is blessed with amazing parks which are enjoyed by park visitors but also often used as routes to walk wheel or cycle in or through.  As supporters of safe and inclusive walking wheeling and cycling, here are our thoughts on cycling in Hackney's parks:

Designing cycle routes
Cycle routes through parks are not preferred, as they are unlikely to be socially safe at night, and will exclude some cyclists.  The alternative should be safe routes on roads, including protection from traffic where required
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Cyclist Behaviour
Away from cycle routes, some people will always choose to cycle in parks for travel and leisure.

• Cyclists should: Drop the pace, enjoy the space
• Pedestrians have priority on shared paths, and even where paths are split like in London Fields, pedestrians are often very close by. Cyclists need to slow down to avoid collisions. Enjoy the slow ride and the park.
• Paths crowded? Walk your bicycle or slow down to walking speed.
• In a hurry? Ideally use an alternative route for your journey.
• Avoid startling people: be visible, give an audible warning or ring your bell. 

What the Council can do

• Any space in parks shared between cyclists and pedestrians should be clearly marked with pedestrian priority made clear
• No barriers or humps should be used as these exclude some cyclists as well as wheelchair or mobility aid users
• Consideration should be given to use of speedometers like in London Fields, or gentle chicanes, for example, to encourage cyclists to slow their pace 
• Where entrances to parks are shared between pedestrians and cyclists, they should be designed to not put cyclists at risk from motor vehicles*
• Shared electric bikes should have their speeds limited while in parks through geofencing
• Where there is evidence of conflict between cyclists and pedestrians in parks, it may be appropriate for the council to perform quantitative and qualitative monitoring, with clear thresholds for mitigating action (e.g. average speeds exceed a limit, numbers of cyclists and pedestrians sharing a width of path per unit of time exceeds a limit, etc.) 

The role of Policing
Illegal e-bikes are as inappropriate in parks as they are on the roads, and should be subject to police control
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*The Road User Hierarchy deems that in circumstances where a road design puts cyclists at risk, a design should be found to ensure safety for both pedestrians and cyclists.

Hackney Council has recently consulted on new low traffic neighbourhoods in Hoxton and Dalston, so sure as night follows day, some residents have been protesting to ‘open our roads’ (or ‘open back our roads’).

When people say ‘open our roads’ or ‘stop the road closures’ the real question is to whom they are open or closed, both before and after an LTN is put in place.  

We know LTNs don’t ‘close’ roads to anyone, they merely restrict through motor traffic to keep it on main roads better adapted to that purpose.  We also know there is strong evidence of many benefits from LTNs.  However, it is true that they have implications for freedom of movement, although not just in the way some people claim.

It is tempting to see the current state of city streets as natural or inevitable, but it is something that has arisen over less than the timespan of a single lifetime, as traffic growth has rocketed. 

This has transformed our towns and cities in ways few people imagined before the motor age. 

Cars have now become so ubiquitous that we hardly acknowledge them anymore and most people just accept their presence without thinking. Without positive action to prevent it, every kerbside becomes filled with parked cars, and every road dominated by their movement. This should not be normal!

More than this, people tend to hold negative effects arising from cars and driving to a completely different standard to other sources of harms.  This issue has been coined ‘motonormativity’ by Professor Ian Walker of Swansea University.  
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Professor Walker’s research has shown people are much more accepting of the exact same impacts (such as polluting the air in a densely populated area) when it comes from drivers and cars than from, say, smokers or other factors causing the same harm. The video below explains this in more detail.

A car is a fantastically useful tool, it allows a person to travel in a comfy chair, warm and protected from the elements, listening to music, and directly to where they need to be, with no physical effort at all.  But the truth is this causes community-level harms; pollution, climate change-inducing CO2, bus-delaying congestion, noise, thousands of annual road casualties, and uses vast amounts of public space.

The impact of this is also to effectively close roads to many people and even whole sections of society; unaccompanied children, pedestrians, cyclists, disabled people, people who can’t afford cars, and anyone put off by the noise stress and danger motor traffic poses. Generally the more dominated a road becomes by motor traffic, the less it is ‘open’ to those outside cars. This has led to poor population health and wellbeing.

Motonormativity means people are less likely to accept that their freedom to drive directly harms other people’s freedom to make different choices. 

When people struggle to see or accept the unintentional harms their behaviour causes, they are more likely to treat measures aimed at reducing harms and improving equality of access on roads as attacks on personal freedom.

But failing to address the dominance of cars has stolen the freedom of people to move without them, and in many places left communities degraded, environments polluted and individuals locked into car-dependent lifestyles which damage disposable incomes, health and quality of life.
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So next time you hear someone say ‘open our roads’, ask them if they mean open to school kids on bikes, or disabled people using mobility aids, or people who can’t afford cars, or if they just mean open to the small minority in Hackney who choose to drive.

The message of Low Traffic Hackney is:

If you wish to 'Stop the road closures!' (to the majority without cars) and 'Open back our roads!' (to everyone), then you need to support LTNs!
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​The scheme involves:

• A bus gate on Hoxton Street
• Filters on Stanway Street and Fanshaw Street
• A New School Street outside St Monica’s Primary School​

All elements of the scheme gained majority support, with many people asking for additional filters to make it more comprehensive and effective.

In October 2025 a new one-way bus gate was put into operation on Chatsworth Road where it meets Brooksby's Walk, alongside a number of smaller changes on side roads. The aim is to reduce through-traffic in the Chatsworth area caused by many drivers rat running between Lea Bridge Road and Homerton High Street, to make walking and cycling safer, improve bus journey times, and to improve air quality.

Details of the liveable neighbourhood are here  and our blog post on implementation in October is here 
As we've seen with many other LTNs in Hackney, there's some initial local opposition to these changes from a number of vocal critics, as some residents have to adapt to new routes and journeys. People don't like change, especially when it comes to driving, as we know. Some local councillors have called on the Council to review the scheme, which was picked up by local paper the Hackney Citizen. The article was, as usual for the Hackney Citizen, fairly biased against the scheme and didn't include a single quote from local residents who are in favour. How this was approved by the editor we don't know.

A petition on change.org currently has just over 1000 signatures, but the petition on the Council website has under 90. Its unclear how many people who signed are actually local residents, and certainly one of the comments is from someone who lives in Nottingham. If you know more about the location of people who signed, please let us know.

For a little more clarity, here's a brief Q&A on the main issues we've heard about.

"It's not working right now, get rid of it or give residents an exemption"
The key learning from other Hackney LTN schemes is that they take time to settle in and the benefits to become apparent. Chatsworth has been in operation for just 3 months, so it's too soon to make any decisions on how good it is. Schemes need minimum of 6 months to settle in, but more likely 12-18 months before people adapt and the benefits of less traffic become clear. Resident exemptions reduce the benefits of a healthy streets scheme like this significantly.

"All the local residents hate it"
This is incorrect. We know of many supporters locally and we've heard from residents who say it's much safer to cycle and walk about the area now. Also, data shows a clear majority (57%) of households in Kings Park and Lea Bridge ward have no access to a vehicle. (From the ONS 2021 census data).

"There's lots more traffic on Powerscroft and Median roads now and it's holding up buses"
This would be a concern if correct. We need traffic data which no doubt Hackney Council will provide. If delays continue, there are a number of possible solutions which don't involve removing the LTN. 
However, it is likely Hackney Central works have exacerbated this with many buses being diverted along Homerton High St and Ponsford St. Now this diversion has ended with Amhurst Rd being open to buses, our monitoring of Median Road suggests the initial issue of congestion has reduced significantly.

Worth noting that the other bus in the area, the 308, should now be quicker due to the bus gate and less traffic on Chatsworth Road itself, which this bus uses.

"Local residents can't get to Homerton Hospital now"
This is not true. First, everyone in Kings Park and Lea Bridge lives relatively close to the hospital so for those who can walk or cycle it should be quicker and safer now. For those who need to drive to the hospital, there is still quick access via Clifden Road to the back entrance of the hospital, and that includes taxis dropping people off. The bus gate does not stop residents driving directly to this entrance. 

"Its ruining my local business as there's no passing trade now"
This is a well known initial reaction from businesses, as witnessed on Church Street in 2021/2. It ignores the fact that most traffic is just passing through. Also, evidence shows that shopping streets with vehicle noise, pollution and road danger are less welcoming to people wanting to shop, eat and drink locally; and that making high streets better for pedestrians has a positive impact on trade in the medium/long term.

"We can't turn right onto Lea Bridge Road now"
This is correct, due to a TFL banned right turn. However, there is a roundabout 500m up the road which allows drivers to turn round and drive east up the Lea Bridge Road if they need to.

"Local residents are trapped and cut-off"
This is incorrect. Some car journeys may take longer. The purpose of LTNs is to make public transport and active travel quicker and safer. All drivers can reach their home by car. But let's be clear, no-one is trapped, residents can drive to every household in the area.

Bus times on Median Road. 
Data is needed over a period of say 6 to 12 months to see if the apparent initial rise in traffic on this road has reduced. As mentioned above, there are solutions. The council could, for example, work with TFL to allow vehicles to filter out onto Lower Clapton Rd more easily, and remove parking on pinch points on the bus routes.