Low Traffic Neighbourhoods: Is this the UK’s most abused traffic bollard?

You have probably never felt sympathy for a bollard before, but spare a thought for the one installed on Howard Street in east Oxford last year.

It is probably the most abused bollard in the UK.

It is blocking the road as part of a Low Traffic Neighbourhood – an LTN – and has been repeatedly run over, beaten, bent, burnt and, finally, stolen.

LTN schemes sound innocuous – they attempt to restrict through-traffic in local communities to cut congestion and pollution – but they have provoked fury.

As well as bollard abuse, LTNs have sometimes led to confrontations between local residents and – more recently – to mass protests.

Over the past few months, councils across England have been lobbied by vocal campaigners against the introduction of new traffic schemes, and some council meetings have been disrupted by activists.

LTNs involve restricting roads in local communities to virtually all through-traffic.

They are funded by the government as part of its £3.2bn active travel policy – and the aim is that half of all trips in England’s towns and cities be walked, cycled, or made in a wheelchair by 2030.

It is part of a push to reduce air pollution, cut greenhouse gas emissions and make us all a bit fitter and healthier.

Local authorities bid for government cash to pay for things, such as cycle lanes, big plant pots and bollards to redirect traffic to other roads.

Oxford has been a focus of the debate over LTNs in recent years.

It got its first permanent LTN in the east of the city two years ago – and a second one is now being trialled.

There are also tough restrictions on how traffic moves through the centre of the city – including number plate recognition cameras that issue fines to cars driving on the high street during restricted hours.

Oxfordshire County Council says the medieval city can’t cope with the level of traffic it has now.

But opponents say the city’s efforts have ended up slowing traffic on main roads and dividing communities.

“They are setting neighbour against neighbour,” warns Richard Parnham, an Oxford resident who is campaigning against traffic restrictions in the city with a local pressure group called Reconnecting Oxford.

Mr Parnham says the schemes have “torn the city apart”.

There is no shortage of videos online showing angry confrontations over the new traffic schemes.

When bollards are stolen some residents have stepped in to block the road themselves, sometimes provoking violent reactions.

Theo Hopkins is 79 years old and one of these “human bollards”.

He says he has been hit twice during confrontations with angry drivers. Once a car pushed him off the road.

Prof Rachel Aldred of Westminster University has studied the impact of 46 schemes in London and says motor traffic is down by an average of about 30% on the roads within the boundaries of the LTNs.

But many drivers and residents complain that LTNs just push the problem from side roads to main roads.

Prof Aldred says the evidence here isn’t clear.

Recorded traffic goes up on the boundary roads in half the LTNs she has studied – and down in the other half. The average increase in traffic flows on boundary roads is just over 1%. Prof Aldred says if LTNs were systematically pushing traffic on to boundary roads she believes her study would have picked that up.