LTNs as a place-based intervention

LTNs aim to reduce through traffic in residential areas using filters, which can take the form of planters, bollards, road signs and cameras (VanHoose, Bertolini and Straatemeier, 2025). In London, many LTNs are enforced using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras, with access maintained for emergency vehicles and there is generally some level of accommodation for disabled people who hold a blue badge/disabled parking permit. Outside of London, planters or bollards are often used to create point closures. LTNs are a carrot and stick method for promoting modal shift from private vehicles to active forms of transport, namely by improving conditions for active travel whilst prompting more circuitous journeys for those driving motor vehicles (Laverty, Goodman and Aldred, 2021). LTNs can be seen as part of a place-based approach to mobility since they focus on neighbourhood level improvements that tend to restrict motor vehicles in favour of walking and cycling.

Whilst our study is UK-based, and there will be elements that are specific to local regulations and cultures, LTNs can be seen to stem from neighbourhood approaches to mobility in Europe such as the Dutch Woonerf (Steinberg, 2015), the Barcelona Superblocks (O’Sullivan, 2020) and the 15-minute city concept that originated in Paris (Nurse, Koksal and Sherriff, 2025). Such initiatives also connect with work on urban experiments internationally, particularly those that seek to test out reconfigurations of street space to “seek a difference balance between motorised and non-motorised traffic in city streets” as well as between “traffic and non-mobility-related, ‘stationary’ uses of public space” (Bertolini, 2020). Vitale Brovarone et al., for example, studied experimental approaches to pedestrianisation in Italy and noted that “procedural and relational conflicts played an important part in determining the course of the initiative” (2023, p. 103528).

Research on LTNs to date

A wealth of research has investigated the impacts of LTNs, particularly in the London context. There is evidence, for example, that demonstrates positive impacts on levels of walking and cycling (Aldred and Goodman, 2020; Goodman, Urban and Aldred, 2020), and the creation of safer and healthier environments within which to use active travel (Laverty, Aldred and Goodman, 2021; Laverty, Goodman and Aldred, 2021). Data from Waltham Forest LTNs in London show that residents are less likely to own a car, with the statistical significance of this trend increasing the longer the LTN has been in place (Aldred and Goodman, 2020; Goodman, Urban and Aldred, 2020). Aldred et al. (2024) have demonstrated substantial health benefits of LTN interventions due to increased levels of physical activity.

Research on LTNs has sought to respond to public concerns. These concerns relate to their impact on emergency response times and crime as well as potential inequalities in their implementation. Goodman and Aldred (2021) found a reduction in street crime in LTN areas and other work found no evidence of a negative impact on emergency response times (Goodman, Laverty and Aldred, 2020; Goodman et al., 2021). Attention has been paid to the potential impacts in the area around the LTN, in particular the boundary roads and the people living on them. Thomas and Aldred (2024) report that studies have tended to show a mixture of traffic redistribution and displacement. They update this in their recent research in which they look at LTNs across London, for which they find evidence that displacement tends to dominate – that is, that LTNs are reducing traffic levels. Research in four London LTNs found that the annual distance LTN residents drove decreased by 6% more than in control areas (Goodman et al., 2023), reflecting similar findings to research on the changes to boundary roads (Thomas and Aldred, 2024). Other research found evidence of potential to decrease air pollution and traffic levels (Yang et al., 2022). In terms of equity, Aldred et al. (2021) found that, at the micro-level, residents of London LTNs were demographically similar to residents in areas outside of the LTN, and deprived Londoners were 2.5 times more likely to live in new LTNs (implemented from March to September 2020).

Compared to this wealth of quantitative and spatial evidence, the body of social research on LTNs and the people living in them, to which this article contributes, is less substantial. Hickman and Afonin (2025) use discourse analysis of resident interviews to understand opposition to LTNs in West London. Their starting point is the importance of subjectivity in the ways in which spaces are conceived and understood – “Streetspace is produced by city authorities and transport planners, yet understood and used by residents and other actors in way that are no envisaged” (2025, p. 414). They observe that wider issues such as conflicts between those walking and those cycling, or difficulties in tackling car dependence to achieve greater environmental sustainability remained “undisclosed and unresolved by the antagonistic respondents” after LTN implementation (2024, p. 7). Pritchett et al (2024) provide a comprehensive analysis of qualitative answers received through a Birmingham City Council consultation. Mapping the wide range of different responses and concerns, they note that there is “great strength of feeling among respondents, both in support of and against the schemes” and that, whilst LTNs address some concerns related to the local traffic environment, there are other issues of importance to residents that are not being addressed, leading the authors to question the extent to which ongoing implementation of LTNs will be supported.

Macniven et al (2024) focus on the potential for LTNs to enable healthy ageing, with a case study in Glasgow. Their participants questioned the policy emphasise on restricting car use without accompanying this with more measures for walking, such as improved spatial planning and more pedestrian crossings with longer crossing times. Whelan et al. (2024) conducted a mixed methods study including air quality monitoring and a questionnaire survey. They found evidence that the scheme had improved air quality and seen increased rates of active travel. Their survey revealed a bimodal distribution between those with positive and negative views on the scheme, with a smaller number reporting neutral views. They note that this polarisation had had a divisive effect on the community.

VanHoose et al (2025) consider LTNs as city street experiments, writing specifically about the temporary LTNs that were installed in London using the Experimental Traffic Order to provide more public space during the Covid-19 pandemic and avoid a return to high levels of car use. They look at the ways in which local government actors learn following such experiments. They reflect on the ways in which transitions are multi-actor processes and note that much of the “transformative knowledge” was gained primarily by residents, rather than local government actors, by experiencing LTNs firsthand.

LTNs in the media

LTNs are an evidently divisive intervention (Mason, 2021), even if the public contention portrayed in media does not necessarily reflect the reality of resident perceptions: recent research, for example, from the Department for Transport indicates that almost double the number of residents support their local LTN as oppose it (Walker, 2024). Generally speaking, and at the risk of simplification, “pro” arguments tend to claim that LTNs improve conditions for walking and cycling and result in the evaporation, that is, reduction, of traffic. “Anti” arguments, on the other hand, tend to deny or minimise the occurrence of traffic evaporation and emphasise the health impacts of displaced traffic on residents living on the roads around LTNs – boundary roads.

This division is evident in media headlines since 2020. The Guardian identified ‘The new road rage: bitter rows break out over UK’s low-traffic neighbourhoods’ (Wall, 2020) and The Times reported that ‘Tensions [were] rising across the country as drivers complain of a war on the motor vehicle’ (Wace, 2021). More recently, The Times reported that Bristol was using the ‘cover of darkness of set up low-traffic neighbourhood’ (Ellson, 2025), with contractors being protected by 60 police officers and a drone since the plans had been delayed by protests. Mancunian Matters has reported ‘conflict in local community as traffic measures divide residents’ (Mancunian Matters 2024).

These newspaper articles commonly use conflict imagery, such as “hate”, “row”, “battle”, and “war” and tend to imply the existence of two entrenched positions: pro- and anti-LTNs. Hickman and Afonin (2025, p. 423) also observed this, noting that their interviewees reflected coverage in some popular press by presenting viewpoints with wording that implied “military connotations”. Gossling et al. (2024, p. 1), in a study of interventions including Oxford LTNs and the London Ultra-low Emissions Zone (ULEZ), also find that any infrastructure seen to “‘disadvantage’ vehicle use” can become an “arena for heated political debate”. They do point out, however, that these concerns should not be “dismissed as a mere nuisance to public order”. They add that we should be mindful of the potential financial impacts on low-income communities and disproportionate impacts upon rural and sub-urban populations, where car dependence may be higher.

The media’s role in the public construction of division over LTNs can be situated more broadly within discourse on sustainability and active travel interventions, including the ways in which the domination of the private car as a transport mode is constructed discursively through language (Caimotto, 2020). Media coverage of sustainability and transport commonly reproduce “them” versus “us” narratives. An example is the contrasting of identities of people who cycle and people who drive, which ignores the nuances of these relationships, not least that many people who cycle also drive (Caimotto, 2020).

Similar divisions can be seen in other attempts to reduce levels of driving in cities. Proposals to introduce a Greater Manchester congestion charge, which would have part funded investment in the public transport and active travel networks, was voted out by the electorate in a 2008 referendum (Sherriff, 2015). Media coverage of the congestion charge and campaign messaging around it commonly involved simplification and the production of two antagonistic positions (Sherriff, 2015)., This distorted the information in systematic and varying ways to, it is argued, make it more newsworthy to different audiences (Vigar, Shaw and Swann, 2011).

Divisions over LTNs, 15-minute neighbourhoods, and other proposals to limit car use can therefore be part of an ongoing discourse that anticipates and reacts to the significant changes in mobility. Loader (2023, p. 60) puts this clearly in this discussion of plans in Oxford: “The contest prompted by Oxford’s traffic filter plans is the latest signal of a reckoning with the motor age, a reckoning that challenges the normalised dominance that the car has assumed over the city, and comes to terms with its damaging impact on the safety and quality of urban life.”

LTNs in British Politics

The situation with relation to LTNs in the UK has changed over the last five years. In February 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a five-year funding package of £5 billion to overhaul bus and cycle links, including the creation of LTNs and “mini-Holland” pilots in London (Dudley, Banister and Schwanen, 2022). Within months, the Covid-19 pandemic meant that an emphasis was placed on cycling, as public transport use decreased, and a case was made for a rapid introduction of LTNs (Dudley, Banister and Schwanen, 2022). Dudley et al take Oxford as a case study of the difficulties that followed in delivering this programme, arguing that entrenched positions in the community left the local authority in a vulnerable position (Dudley, Banister and Schwanen, 2022). In July 2023, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, took policy in a different direction, ordering a review of LTNs in July 2023, and describing the schemes as “hare-brained” and a “war on motorists”. According to The Guardian, when a report seemingly deemed LTNs as positive interventions Government advisers asked that “it be permanently shelved” (Walker, 2024). In October 2023, the then Secretary of State for Transport, further stoked division through comments at the Conservative Party Conference that exaggerated the restrictive nature of LTNs: “what is sinister and what we shouldn’t tolerate is the idea that local councils can decide how often you go to the shops and that they ration who uses the roads and when, and they police it all with CCTV”. In the same month, the Government published the “Plan for Drivers” with the premise that “it’s not right that some drivers feel under attack” (Department for Transport, 2023). This document raised concerns about neighbourhood approaches, such as 15-minute neighbourhoods and, with specific reference to LTNs, called for a focus on local support for the schemes and consideration of how to address existing LTNs that have not secured local support. At the time of writing, the policy direction on LTNs of the new Labour Government elected in July 2024 has not been made clear.

Introduction

Our conversations with residents illustrated factors that shape experiences of mobility and, in turn, perceptions of and reactions to active neighbourhoods. Based on what they revealed in interviews and focus groups, participants could be placed into three categories: broadly in favour of, opposed to, and ambivalent to the implementation of LTNs (Table 1). Whilst participants’ perceptions towards LTNs in Greater Manchester differed in this respect, there were in fact many commonalities that transcended these three positions.

Similar desires: a better neighbourhood for everyone

Across all participants in go-alongs and focus groups, irrespective of position on LTNs, there was a shared desire for the development of neighbourhoods that would improve the everyday experiences of residents. This viewpoint is succinctly expressed by Jane (P1) during a go-along in Levenshulme, who makes a connection between this aspiration and the implications of roads and traffic: “I think there’s a lot of people want the same thing, they want less pollution, they want lower traffic, they want that investment and interventions for their roads as well, they don’t want to be left behind.”

For the older adults participating in the two focus groups, the potential for LTNs to reduce levels of through traffic and create a quiet and safer environment was attractive. Many of the older adults did not have access to a household car and relied upon walking and public transport, or the use of taxis or lifts by family and friends, in order to be able to access shops and services. They considered the provision of space for walking and exercising to be a positive development: “It’s a positive experience to use your feet and to have nice places to walk” (Focus Group 2).

This need for enhancement was considered particularly relevant in the context of difficulties in accessing greenspaces. This related to a combination of factors including distance and age-related reduced mobility as well as a reduction, over time, in greenspace: “It would be nice to have areas we can walk around. They [the council] built on greenspaces, developers have bought other greenspaces” (Focus Group 2).

Shared concerns: unequal outcomes

A concern that emerged in the implementation of LTNs is the potential for increases in levels of motor traffic on boundary roads and a subsequent reduction in local air quality. Residents were concerned about the implications for equality. For Charlotte (P11), who had observed a reduction in symptoms of her children’s asthma that she associated with there being less traffic on the road during the initial Covid-19 lockdown in the UK: “If certain residents are going to bear the brunt of it… I think that is unfair, and they shouldn’t have to suffer.”

It is also instructive that perceptions of LTNs were influenced by perceptions of social inequality. In Levenshulme, interviewees were concerned about potential gentrification – “I love the filter, but at the same time I was like, this is more reason for our landlord to increase our rent” (Claire P13). For others, there was a perception that LTNs could improve the neighbourhood at the expense of the boundary roads – “that’s almost saying that all of us that live off it, on the other roads that come out, don’t exist or don’t matter, we’re not part of Levenshulme” (Ellie P10).

Conversely, residents of Garside Hey felt that the decision to implement an LTN there was a reflection of their inequality and relative deprivation:

I guess the perception is people who live in a private estate probably wouldn’t stand for and allow anything like that to happen, full stop, whereas somewhere like around here – I don’t want to use words that are belittling, but I guess that round here they think people have got less of a choice having stuff done. (Kevin P1, Garside Hey Road)

Interviewees mentioned that they considered the planters to be “ugly” and to indicate that social housing needed to be “penned in”. Far from gentrification, they hinted at ghettoization: “keeping the council estate out of the way of the and creating a clean sweep down Garside Hey Road to the more expensive estate” (Kevin P1, Garside Hey Road).

Similar frustrations – processes of LTN implementation

In addition to similar desires in terms of better neighbourhoods for everyone and concerns regarding inequalities – albeit with different perspectives on their resolution – there were also some shared frustrations with processes of LTN implementation amongst participants. These tended to transcend differences in their overall positions on LTNs. These frustrations are important to note as they impact resident perceptions of the capacity of local authorities to implement interventions such as LTNs. They also contribute to increasing friction between residents with differing opinions.

Frustrations with processes of monitoring and evaluation were related to perceived inadequacies in the monitoring that was carried out. Approaches such as traffic counts and air quality monitoring, for example, could enable effective evaluation by providing data on whether LTNs successfully increased levels of walking and cycling as well as whether LTNs negatively impacted boundary roads in relation to air quality and traffic levels. The absence of monitoring was particularly critical for the go-along participants that were ambivalent, who were often waiting on data to make up their minds on whether they support their local LTN. For example, Charlotte commented on the absence of data on the LTN trial in Levenshulme:

I felt a bit saddened by that, and I’m very – I’m a data person. I use a lot of data in my job, and I felt like there hadn’t been any data collection to give you the value of this is what it was before and this is what it is after, so that really concerned me. (Charlotte P11)

Another side to these concerns about monitoring stemmed from the way in which existing data was being used, and how this related to the siting of the LTN. One participant reflected that air quality monitoring had found high levels of pollution on the boundary roads and therefore they did not understand why the measures were going in on the side streets, where pollution levels were lower:

I think people are upset as well with that, the fact that a report that identified all illegal levels of pollution on boundary roads. It has been used in a bid submission where actual interventions are going in the on the side streets, which probably have the much lower pollution level. I think people are upset. I think they’re angry. I think they’re frustrated. All sorts of emotions. Betrayed. I think betrayal’s a big one. (Kevin, P1)

Frustrations with processes of communication related both to how local authorities initially communicated the plans for an LTN trial and to the ongoing processes of communication leading up to and during an LTN trial. In general, residents received flyers through their doors to inform them about an upcoming LTN trial or consultation on implementing one. For residents who were not already actively engaged in local walking and cycling campaigning, these flyers were sometimes overlooked or had not been received: “I was told there was something came through the post, or something. You get a lot of junk mail, and it goes. It got lost and you don’t really see it” (Tara, P15). In Garside Hey Road, Natalie (P2) observed a similar concern: “There was a bit at first because there were loads [of people] going, ‘What is this? We’ve not been told. You’ve not put a leaflet through.’”

There was also concern around ongoing communication, and particularly the role that councillors had in the process. Participants considered that councillors and council officers should be providing information and also spend more time promoting the scheme and working to allay concerns regarding it. This was articulated by Jane (P8): “Someone really does kind of need to champion it… And it’s the project team and the councillors who should be really working to communicate.” Participants felt this lack of clear ownership exacerbated friction between those for and against the LTNs within the community as residents, instead of councillors and council officers, stepped in to advocate for the scheme.

Whilst these concerns about effective and democratic engagement are reflected in recent LTN literature (Dudley, Banister and Schwanen, 2022; Pritchett, Bartington and Neil Thomas, 2024), the interviewees suggest that the context created by the Covid-19 lockdowns added a further layer of challenge characterised by a reliance on online communication:

There was no way to have a public meeting, there was no way to engage; it was all online. The toxic nature of that, that it is, I think that definitely made it a lot harder, and also just made it nastier – because people were already struggling with something strange, in their experiences and the anxieties round about that. Then your schemes coming in and changing, and we can’t go and speak to anyone: we can’t see the councillors at the surgeries, and we can’t go into meeting; we can’t all thrash this out and be civil about it. It just amplified it. (Natalie, P2)

Unequal experiences – places for walking

Perhaps the theme around which there were the greatest differences and inequality of experiences was infrastructure for walking. This affected those who were walking the majority of their everyday journeys. LTNs were not considered to be an improvement to walking experiences as they were not, in their current form, addressing many of the factors that impede the pedestrian experience – for example, pavement parking, poor pavement conditions, and lack of dropped kerbs and crossing points. Tara described the pavements during a go-along:

Then you’ve got the pavements that are up even, up and down, and it’s just, it is a struggle. This road round here with cars coming round, it is bad. I have to actually get the children to walk on the pavement, the ones that walk. I have to take the buggy on to the middle of the road. Sometimes you do get the children, because they have learned, “Stay with me, follow me on to the road,” and it just feels like you’d have a heart attack. (Tara, P15)

Similar discussions on the importance of pavement infrastructure were covered in the focus group discussions with older adults. While, as discussed, the idea of active neighbourhoods was considered positive by older adults, the absence in investment in pavement infrastructures was considered to detract from the ability to support older adults to actively access their local neighbourhood. For example, participants in the focus group discussions described having to stare down at the ground to prevent themselves from tripping over as they walked. As one older person expressed: “I am so sick of walking in my area looking at the pavements” (Focus Group 2). Another noted how pavement conditions contributed to her isolation: “I don’t drive, and it’s impossible for me to walk to the shops because of the state of the pavements” (Focus Group 1).

The absence of dropped kerbs was another factor inhibiting older people’s mobility: “my husband has an electric wheelchair, and he can’t manage the pavements. He can’t get on and off” (Focus Group 1). Older people in the two focus groups noted that, in addition to wheelchair users needing such kerbs, they are also necessary for people with reduced mobility as well as parents pushing prams:

What I do find is there’s not enough sloped kerbs. You get them for someone’s drive and maybe at a corner, but if you’ve got a long street area there’s no slope. They need to put a lot more sloped kerbs in, not just for wheelchairs, people with prams, people using walking sticks. (Focus Group 1)

Participants saw a need for dropped kerbs at frequent points along pavements to enable them to cross filtered roads within LTNs and therefore be able to take the most efficient walking routes to destinations: “they shouldn’t just be on corners as it’s harder to cross the road on a corner, especially if there’s no traffic lights” (Focus Group 1).

Older people considered pavement parking to further exacerbate their difficulties in walking in their local areas. Pavement parking commonly narrows available pavements, increasing difficulties in walking, particularly if older people must then navigate out into the road, an issue accentuated by a lack of dropped kerbs. Older people also attributed poor pavement conditions to vehicles parking on the pavements and expressed disappointment in their local representatives for inaction around pavement parking: “Parking on pavements? If the councillors aren’t going to do anything then democracy isn’t good anymore. Ears are deaf” (Focus Group 2).

Sources of division