BBC Accused Of Airing Incendiary Claim That Women Put In Danger By Low Traffic Neighborhoods

The Science and Environment Unit of BBC News has been accused of spreading falsehoods in a TV report on Low Traffic Neighborhoods (LTNs) broadcast on March 17.

The report is the “most-watched video on the BBC website at the moment,” said a TV news anchor at the end of BBC London News last night, and “rightly so,” he added.

“It’s neighbors fighting neighbors over the issue of Low Traffic Neighborhoods,” the anchor said.

“You need to see it to believe it.”

Indeed, in several ways, the report was unbelievable, including, says one parliamentarian, because it appears to breach BBC impartiality rules.

Lord Berkeley has written to the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards, claiming that the report failed to meet the broadcaster’s editorial guidelines.

Among several other claims, a “contributor made a statement that a taxi driver could not access her property and this went unchallenged,” wrote Lord Berkeley, patron of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cycling and Walking.

“All residential properties remain accessible, albeit via a slightly longer route,” he stated.

Tahlee Johnson, described by the BBC as an “LTN resident,” claimed in the broadcast piece that women’s safety was put at risk by LTNs.

“My taxi driver has dropped me off here because he can’t get through to my house anymore,” she said on the report. The clip had initially been shared on Twitter and showed a London street at night.

“Single women … are no longer able to get directly to their houses of residence,” Johnson stated in her clip.

Women’s safety is high on the media agenda currently because of the Sarah Everard murder. Therefore one might assume an incendiary claim that women are being put in danger due to the physical inability of taxi drivers to access LTNs would be fact-checked by the BBC.

The BBC, the reporter, and the report producer have all been contacted for this piece asking whether the taxi claim was fact-checked, but I have yet to receive any replies. However, Lord Berkeley has received a reply from an editorial adviser to BBC News — more on that below.

Taxi firms

I have fact-checked the claim. The road in question is blocked to motorists with a number plate recognition camera but, via other entry points, access to all the houses on the London street remain accessible to those in cars, including taxis.

London taxi drivers who fail to drop a passenger at a specified place breach rules in place since 1853, risking a fine of £1,000.

Four taxi firms that operate close to a London LTN were asked whether they are unable to reach any addresses since LTNs were introduced last year: all replied that they can still “pick up and drop off directly to door.”

Fashion designer Susan Cashmere no longer owns a car and frequently uses taxis to ferry herself and goods through an LTN in Walthamstow, London.

“I often use Ubers to get lots of equipment to and from photoshoots,” she told me.

“There is never a problem with access. If anything, it’s easier now we are part of an LTN, because I can get the taxi right outside our door and I can load the boot without impatient rat runners tooting at me to hurry up.”

Sarah Berry, volunteer co-chair of the Living Streets campaign group in Lambeth, said the BBC report was “irresponsible.”

She told me: “At a time when women in London are feeling even more on edge on our streets than usual, to allow inaccurate claims that low traffic neighborhoods somehow prevent people from accessing their homes by car to go unchecked feels irresponsible at best and fearmongering at worst.”

Lambeth Council’s deputy leader Claire Holland told me that “all homes are accessible by motor vehicle” on the road that Ms Johnson said was now inaccessible to taxi drivers.

“It might just mean going a slightly different way or changing your route slightly,” added Cllr Holland, who is the council’s lead for sustainable transport, environment, and clean air.

Ethical Man?

The TV report was fronted by the BBC’s Chief Environment correspondent Justin Rowlatt. In 2006, Rowlatt was BBC Newsnight’s “Ethical Man,” living green and low impact for a year. Rowlatt says on his Twitter profile that he now reports “from the front line of climate change.”

Pointing to a camera-monitored barrier, Rowlatt said on the report: “Drive through it, and you’ll be issued with a £130 fine ... Now, within weeks of opening these Low Traffic Neighborhoods, they had issued almost 6,000 fines and raised almost half a million quid.”

LTNs are not installed to raise revenue; they are installed to reduce rat-running through residential neighborhoods, improve air and make areas safer for cyclists and pedestrians.

Two of those interviewed for the piece have complained about it online.

“Outrage over cul-de-sacs was not put into proper context,” tweeted Greater Manchester’s walking and cycling commissioner Chris Boardman, adding that it was “very disappointing” that this context “didn’t make the edit.”

And Mark Eccleston, a former BBC journalist who still occasionally works for the broadcaster, said the piece made an “extraordinary claim about women’s safety,” that was “not true.”

Eccleston was shown in the film arguing with his neighbor Lorna O’Driscoll, a set-up by the producers.

“I felt the whole piece was driven to find conflict and anger and anecdotes,” he told me.

“I was assured that the environment department would look at the copious evidence that LTNs are good for the environment.”

Instead, the report was “surprisingly and disappointingly unscientific” said Eccleston.

The BBC’s chief environment correspondent should “know about the environment, and know where to find the science and who to trust with the science.”

As a former BBC radio producer in the North East of England, Eccleston said he was well aware of producer guidelines and he feels this report fell far short of those guidelines.

“They know what they should be doing,” he said, “and they haven’t done it.”

“I’ve worked [at the BBC] most of my life and I think it’s an extraordinary institution— —I always defend it to the hilt—but on this occasion, the environment department just looked terrible.”

Guidelines breach

In his letter to the BBC, Lord Berkeley said he believes the broadcast did not meet the required standards of impartiality contained in section 4.1 of the BBC Editorial Guidelines.

The news report, said the Labour peer, “did not contain any data or facts relating to the efficacy of Low Traffic Neighborhoods, as you might expect from the BBC’s Science and Environment unit.”

“This data,” said Lord Berkeley, “is readily available and comprehensive.”

Instead, he continued, Rowlatt’s report “perpetuated concerning falsehoods on public safety despite evidence, for example, that introducing low traffic neighborhoods in Waltham Forest led to an overall reduction of street crime, particularly violent and sexual offences, according to a study.”

Lord Berkeley also accused Rowlatt of condoning illegal behavior and approving social media comments against cyclists. In the report, a video from a Twitter user claimed that LTNs were “all for the cyclists and all for the middle classes and the crackpots.”

While trying to contact this Twitter user, Rowlatt wrote that this comment was “brilliant.”

(On Twitter, Rowlatt has since rowed back that comment, saying he “misspoke.”)

“It's concerning that the BBC would take such an approving view on content featuring language and rhetoric which undoubtedly makes the journeys of vulnerable road users less safe,” said Lord Berkeley in his complaint to the BBC.

He added that “multiple instances of illegal behavior—death threats, criminal damage, driving on the pavement, driving while filming with a mobile phone—were featured without question or comment.”

Lord Berkeley said that “normalizing this illegal behavior as if it is part of normal and reasoned debate is dangerous and has real-world consequences.”

Instead of a “sensible discussion on how we need to adapt and use our cars less,” the BBC report “embarked on its own journey to stir up a manufactured culture war,” concluded Lord Berkeley.

Replying to Lord Berkeley, Sarah Nelson an editorial adviser to BBC News said that the corporation knew that “opposition to LTNs is widespread and very vocal.” She added that many local authorities are now “anxious about extending existing LTNs and introducing new ones.”

Given this anxiety, and awareness that a negative press can kibosh new schemes, it remains strange that the BBC did not fact-check the incendiary taxi claim.

Ms Nelson did not address the lack of this fact-check in her reply to Lord Berkeley.

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Updated on March 25 with Sarah Nelson’s reply to Lord Berkeley.