Residents living on roads next to a planned Dalston traffic scheme are taking legal advice over a possible challenge, saying it will push more traffic onto streets the council has already failed to protect.
The Hackney Central Neighbourhood Residents Association, which represents about 50 households on Dalston Lane, Graham Road, Navarino Road and Greenwood Road, has lodged a formal objection to the traffic orders for the Dalston Liveable Neighbourhood.
The statutory consultation on the orders closed on Wednesday 4 November. The scheme includes a bus gate on Shacklewell Lane, traffic filters on Cecilia, Foulden and Farleigh Roads, a left-turn ban out of Ridley Road and two new School Streets.
The council says the measures will create “a more welcoming, people-friendly neighbourhood for the community”.
But Ralph De Haas, 50, an economist who lives on what is unofficially termed a “boundary road”, said: “It’s already the mother of all rat-runs.”
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), he said: “We’re worried about safety, noise pollution, health, kids getting to school, and idling traffic.”
Displaced traffic
The residents say their streets are already taking traffic displaced by the London Fields low traffic neighbourhood and the Amhurst Road bus gate, which came into force in January.
When the then Labour council approved the Amhurst Road scheme in October 2024, its own decision report predicted “displacement along Graham Road and Navarino Road”, and said “mitigations for these roads will be an important part of the follow up”.
The same report said the council had “two permanent traffic counters on both Navarino and Greenwood Road to monitor traffic displacement 24/7”. In response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, the council has since said it does not hold specific traffic flow data for the Greenwood Road junction.
Council counts released under FOI show traffic on Graham Road east of Massie Road rose from 14,351 vehicles a day in July 2024 to 16,116 in October 2025, an increase of 12 per cent overall and 22 per cent westbound.
Figures compiled by residents from council data put the rise at 123 per cent on Greenwood Road and 162 per cent on Navarino Road since 2024.
Collisions
Official police injury data shows a pedestrian was seriously injured at the junction of Graham Road and Greenwood Road in February 2024.
In 2025 there were two injury collisions there: a cyclist was seriously injured in a collision with a goods vehicle in October, and a driver was slightly hurt in April.
Metropolitan Police figures obtained by the residents under FOI, which also count collisions in which no one was hurt, show six collisions at the junction in 2024 and three in 2025, compared with three in total from 2020 to 2023.
According to the residents’ objection, the council holds no road safety audit for the junction, despite 31 complaints since 2019.
Jean-Michel Massey, 43, has been monitoring traffic with a camera outside his home on Greenwood Road. The residents’ count, over 13 days in October, found the road was jammed on average for 47 minutes of every hour between 3pm and 4pm in term time, as children walk home.
‘Scary’
Social worker Sophie Jobson, 43, who moved to Graham Road in 2010 and has led a deputation to the council’s cabinet on behalf of residents of the three roads, said the street had “never been this busy”.
She said opponents of low traffic neighbourhoods were sometimes “stereotyped” as “upper middle-class white people in massive houses with multiple cars”.
“I don’t drive,” she said. “Just trying to get the pram across the road is quite scary. It’s a mission taking my son to London Fields or Hackney Downs, with the amount of traffic and people ignoring red lights. I’m worrying about when he will start walking, and it will feel even more dangerous.”
According to the council, it has introduced 19 low traffic neighbourhoods since 2020, which it says cover half the borough’s area, a greater share than any other London borough.
No funding
The council’s 2024 decision report said green improvements to Graham Road had “no funding”. The residents say the council told them in April this year that there was still no funding secured and no approved programme of works for the road.
The council’s 2025 consultation booklet said it had “secured nearly £3 million from Transport for London” for the Dalston scheme. But the council’s February 2026 decision report on the scheme said only £148,000 had been confirmed, with the rest still requested.
Graham Road resident Mark Dalli argues the council cannot understand the scheme’s impact without fresh data. A ward councillor told residents in October that officers want three months of traffic counts after the Dalston Lane and Pembury Circus works, with collection not expected to begin before December.
The association says it will withdraw its objection only if the council commits, with funding and a timetable, to measures including deferring the orders until that data is published, a road safety audit of the junction and the mitigation promised in 2024.
Legal advice
Some members are taking legal advice with a view to a possible judicial review. The LDRS understands the possible grounds include the right to respect for private and family life and the home under the Human Rights Act.
Minutes of a September meeting between residents and councillors, issued by ward councillors, record the Cabinet member as saying decisions must be “evidence-based and data-led, otherwise we open ourselves up for judicial review”.
Consultation
Dalli told the council its online consultation page was “inaccessible” because it had no link, form or instructions on how to object.
In emails seen by the LDRS, one ward councillor wrote on 28 October that he was waiting to hear why the consultation was not online. The next day another told officers that if there had been “no clear way to respond”, the statutory deadline should be extended.
The council’s 2025 public consultation on the scheme drew 1,136 responses, 51 per cent from inside the scheme area. Consultation booklets were delivered to properties in the scheme area; the residents say their streets were not approached.
The bus gate was backed by 48 per cent of respondents and opposed by 44 per cent.
A Hackney Council spokesperson said: “We’ve met with residents on Greenwood Road and Navarino Road to hear their concerns. We have committed to release early monitoring results in the new year. We are seeking funding for proposals to help mitigate the issues.”
The council added that it had collected “pre-implementation” data for the Dalston scheme and was continuing to collect data for Hackney Central following the Pembury Circus works.
With additional reporting by Hackney Citizen.
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