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A NEW LTN IS COMING TO
HIGHBURY EAST
Highbury cut off from Stokey & Hackney
Slower buses
- more jams on key roads -
business disaster

Highbury New Park
'Liveable Neighbourhood'

  • The Council issued objectives for the "Highbury New Park Liveable Neighbourhood" in 2022 and confirmed development in October 2025, in spite of admitting that no work had yet begun on a plan. See Appendix.

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  • No official information is expected before the election in May, this is our understanding of the objectives' impact

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  • Boundaries

    • East - West: Blackstock/Highbury Grove to Green Lanes/Newington Green Road​

    • North - South: Brownswood to St Pauls Roads

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  • All roads to be blocked between Green Lanes/Stokey & Highbury Grove/Blackstock

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  • Only East-West access via St Pauls & Brownswood Rds

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  • New very sharp left turn to be created at Highbury Grove and St Pauls junction

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  • High risk of massive congestion  - the first LTN to serverely impact bus services

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  • Boundary roads more polluted & less safe​​​

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  • Consultation 2026, Implementation 2027/8

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  • Blackstock/Highbury Grove is a major bus and through route and must be protected​

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A SOLUTION WITHOUT A PROBLEM​

THE NUMBER ONE HIGHBURY ELECTION ISSUE

New brown map 4Mar26 Cropped JPEG_edited.jpg

This map has no official status but is based on the Council proposal

St Pauls/Highbury Grove
Left Turn Disaster
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If you want to go east, you will have to turn left here, somehow.

Hard for car, imagine a 25 ft truck.

  • The Council admits design 'very complex', hard to imagine how it will work - two traffic islands need change or removal

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  • Much more traffic from Highbury Grove when Grosvenor Avenue closed. Everything going east will hold up other traffic

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  • Already jams in rush hour - soon could jam up to Highbury Barn every day​​

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  • St Pauls traffic towards Highbury Corner will be held up by those turning right into Highbury Grove

 

  • Buses 4, 19, 236, 263 & 30 will be badly delayed

    • TFL must give us estimate of impact​

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  • Implementation with same skills that gave us Highbury Corner

The problem with right turns
-Brownswood Road-
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 Brownswood crossing Green Lanes

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 Green Lanes crossing Brownswood & Lordship

  • Traffic turning right at a crossroads will generally only allow 2 or 3 vehicles at each change of lights

 

  • If there is only a single lane, too many cars turning right will block all traffic

 

  • When through routes via Mountgrove, Riversdale and Highbury Quadrant / New Park are blocked, many more vehicles will need to use Brownwood and then turn right, blocking all, including 106 bus

 

  • The same problem will occur in Green Lanes - a major road - going south as traffic turning into Riversdale will be blocked and Highbury New Park will no longer allow through traffic. Extra delays for 141 & 341 buses

 

  • Result - long jams at rush hour, increased pollution

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  • Like with the Highbury West LTN, longer routes made worse by increased congestion

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  • No escape from roadworks problems​​

Petherton - Grosvenor - Newington Green Roads

  • We know that access to Highbury Grove from Grosvenor and Highbury New Park must be blocked at some point, but it is difficult to predict restrictions in the east part from 2022 Objectives (see below)
     

  • Real risk of much extra Green Lanes traffic going to Highbury Corner using Petherton & Wallace as Highbury Grove will be less accessible.
     

  • Hence Wallace Road may be blocked
     

  • But if Wallace is blocked then there will be a large increase in traffic turning right into St Pauls from Newington Green Rd, blocking all traffic, see the Brownswood Rd Problem
     

  • Classic example of blocking one set of roads leading to problems further away.

Gains & Losses
CLAIMED GAINS

  • “Cleaner, greener, healthier streets” meaning:
    New green spaces & tree planting - great, but why traffic controls?

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  • Pollution from vehicles:

    • The Council admit that commercial heating and cooking are actually the worst polluters and vehicle pollution is already improving from ULEZ and vehicle standards

    • The zone will move any pollution from clean areas to hotspots

    • Inside zone pollution will go from very low to negligible 

    • Blackstock, Highbury Grove, St Pauls & Brownswood will go from bad to worse

 

  • Safety improvements

    • Is there a problem inside the zone? What are the statistics?

    • It's the pavements that are unsafe 

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  • Boundary roads where people shop and catch buses will be busier, dirtier and less safe

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  • Is the real reason for this LTN to collect extra fines?

EXPECTED LOSSES

  • Major rush hour delays to all traffic on important through roads

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  • Key bus routes are impacted, unlike other LTNs

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  • Serious consequences for businesses:

    • Shop deliveries and customers impacted

    • Home delivery and maintenance services

    • Kelvin Road business estate reduced access

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  • Wider public will lose from:

    • Poorer bus services, 

    • More difficult and expensive taxi access

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  • Car users will be penalised, but nobody will benefit

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  • Fewer options when roadworks close roads

MAY ELECTIONS
- who wants LTNs?
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The Labour Council wants to avoid talking about this new  LTN before the election - nothing in the manifesto

  • They will claim plans not made, but they have working on them for four years
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  • WE NEED TO KNOW THE PLANS BEFORE ELECTION​

 

   Three parties have represented Highbury      in recent years:

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  • ​Labour are promoting this LTN
     

  • Greens are not giving an opinion without detailed plans,  but know the objectives: if they don’t make their position clear, assume they support the LTN, in line with general Green policy​
     

  • Liberal Democrats - Not against LTNs in general, but share most of our concerns about this one, particularly congestion arising from the new Highbury Grove/St Pauls left turn and on bus performance.

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Make sure the candidates know your concerns
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MAKE YOUR VOTE COUNT

WE NEED A PROPER DISCUSSION AT A WARD MEETING BEFORE THE ELECTION
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HACKNEY RESIDENTS NEAR BROWNSWOOD WILL BE AFFECTED – CONTACT YOUR COUNCILLORS
CONSULTATION
PROCESS
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Whoever wins the election should be willing to support a proper consultation process. Past experience is not good:​

  • Consultations have never included plans, so it is very difficult to understand the impact. The claim that plans will be made as a result of the consultation is false, although small changes are occasionally made.​
     

  • Questionnaires have been designed to give support to the LTN proposal - examples:​

    •  “Do you want less traffic/pollution/more green spaces etc?” - Who doesn’t?​

    • You don’t see – “Do you think slower buses are OK given other advantages?"​

  • People are asked to put on a map points of concern about pollution, safety etc, but it is not easy to make objections in the survey, particularly when there are no specific proposals.​​
     

  • We never see in advance estimates of the impact on traffic and especially TFL’s report on bus services.​​​
     

  • Businesses need to be surveyed separately and given extra weight

WE NEED A DRAFT PLAN, IMPACT ASSESMENT AND FAIR QUESTIONNAIRES AS PART OF CONSULTATION
Appendix: Highbury New Park LN - The Council’s Objectives from 2022 & 2025 Planning Decision

  • Objectives: “We have committed to delivering liveable neighbourhoods across the borough to create cleaner, greener and healthier streets. It is our intention to develop plans for a liveable neighbourhood in the ‘Highbury New Park’ area between Highbury Barn, Brownswood Road, Green Lanes and St Paul’s Road. This area includes Riversdale Road.

  • In addition to developing public realm improvement measures such as street greening and better pavements and crossings, it is proposed that the liveable neighbourhood scheme will prevent through-traffic cutting through local streets in this area including Riversdale Road, while retaining vehicle access to all addresses.

  • We will be engaging with local people in due course to gather their views on how we should improve the streets in the ‘Highbury New Park’ area. This will enable us to develop and consult on plans for a liveable neighbourhood scheme for the area.

  • Our approach to liveable neighbourhoods is to introduce an area-wide scheme covering the local streets across a neighbourhood area. The rationale for delivering an area-wide scheme is to avoid introducing measures that would simply push traffic from one local street to the next, and instead to address the issue of through-traffic across the whole neighbourhood. The ‘Highbury New Park’ area is a large area and the project is expected to take time to develop.

  • In order to develop a liveable neighbourhood scheme in the ‘Highbury New Park’ area, we believe we will also need to address an issue with existing banned turns which currently constrain vehicle movements at the junction of Highbury Grove and St Paul’s Road. These banned turns would prevent traffic from circulating around the area on the main road network if we implemented a liveable neighbourhood.

  • We are currently testing the feasibility of redesigning the junction of Highbury Grove and St Paul’s Road. The aim of these design proposals is to improve traffic movement along St Paul’s Road and Highbury Grove in addition to making the junction safer for people walking and cycling. This is a complex project and it is expected to take time before we understand the feasibility of making changes to this junction. (Note added: this refers to the potentially very disruptive plan for a left turn from Highbury Grove into St Pauls Road and right turn from St Pauls into Highbury Grove)

  • Please be assured that we will be engaging with people in the local area in due course to help us develop for plans for a liveable neighbourhood in the area...”

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​       Approval of TfL Year 2 (2026/27) Local  Implementation Plan Programme 28 October 2025

  • "The council has brought forward and commenced development of the Highbury New Park and Tollington LNs to 2025/26 (this was envisaged as starting from 2027/28 in the 2024 LIP Executive Report). In 2025/26, funding will be reallocated to these two schemes from the three schemes noted in the next paragraph. Development (including engagement) will continue in 2026/27 with implementation (for Tollington) proposed to follow in 2027/28."

OTHER NEWS

BLUE BADGES

  • Finally Blue Badge users are now allowed across all of Islington – this has taken five years of pleading by those concerned out LTNs.
     

  • The issue was identified at the earliest consultation stage of the first LTN, but ignored by the Council.
     

  • After three years Blue Badge users were allowed freedom within the LTN in which they live, but not elsewhere. It took another two years before access to the whole borough was granted.
     

  • A classic example of the Council being deaf to the real concerns of citizens in matters relating to LTN implementation.

THE ROADWORKS PROBLEM

  • Recent roadworks at Finsbury Park has shown how inflexible Islington’s management of LTNs.
     

  • The new Highbury East LTN will make the situation much worse, as the already congested Brownswood Road will the ‘only way out’ to the east.
     

  • Buses terminated before normal end.
     

  • Highbury West LTN was partly ‘opened up’ to relieve congestion after residents appealed to the Council, but there was no way of communicating this to the vast majority of drivers affected. The same problem will apply with the new LTN.
     

  • Permanent, prominent and changeable signs need to made such as at the junction of Aubert Park and Highbury Park in the west so the drivers can see when LTNs are open in special circumstances. These would also be needed at important junctions in the east if a new LTN is implemented.

GET IN TOUCH

Please also copy us in at keephighburymoving@gmail.com and we will collate objections, constructive comments, suggestions and keep residents informed.

Thanks for submitting!

Keep Highbury Moving 2026

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