- He's on this, what do you mean by he's on this?
- Hello, hello.
- There he is! - Hey, how are you?
- I remember you. - Do you recognise this man?
- How are you doing?
- you might recognise me. - Nice to see you.
- Hey, how are you, hi, how are you?
- Hello. - You're famous.
- You've got a bit of beast here, haven't you?
- You like that, huh? - My goodness.
- Well, I saw you chasing--
- It better be zero emission, or you'll be in big trouble.
- (laughs) Yeah, exactly, I saw you weren't very impressed
with the mayor's armoured car, but
- Well, I wasn't. - I can recognise your voice
from anywhere, but-- - Can you? (chuckles)
- Yeah, first of all, I appreciate you doing that.
And I thought you were right, quite reasonable as well.
- Well I think it's reasonable just to ask
any elected official for a bit of time.
- Yeah. - I would just like to stress
what aggrieved me most was
that he had come...
Nothing was organised for that, just so you know.
I'm a local resident, I'm not political on this.
And I literally got a call just saying,
"Look, Sadiq's at the local coffee shop," you know
"will you go along?"
And I was actually in the middle of doing some work
you know, I do have to make a living.
So, but I shot down there
I shot up there and there was three other people
I think three or four people who were local residents
and nothing organised at all.
And when I got there, Sadiq was giving
media interviews televised three different media interviews.
And we stood in silence while he conducted those.
And which was very respectful.
And, you know, let him say his piece.
When he finished the interviews, I just said
"Can we have a word," you know, we're local residents,
looked at us, about footed, walked in the coffee shop.
And I thought, "Really not acceptable."
And then we were, then we stood there,
it was a very cold day,
I had a chat with some people outside.
And then his PA came out about,
I think one of his PA's come about 20 minutes later
and said, "He's gone."
And I said, "Well, unless there's a tunnel under here.
"No, one's gone anywhere."
So, you know, so--
- You were like, shouting into the coffee shop,
you said like, "We just want to talk to him."
- Well I was just, I want to talk to him.
So, and it was, you know, I just thought it's not...
You're an elected representative
and you should be able to answer to your people.
And, and that, that's all I wanted.
And you know, I didn't feel I was rude to him
and I was very disappointed.
- I thought you were quite reasonable,
and I made a couple of videos about this later.
And I said, I thought, I mean, you guys, weren't swearing
you weren't being violent and you were going on this
and you said Mr. Mayor, we're from Enfield,
we just want to ask you some questions about the LTN
you're on your bike,
and he just didn't even engage with you,
and he ran off, and I thought
"That just doesn't seem right for an elected official"
like you said at the very end of the video,
"I assume he was here trying to get our vote?"
- That's the thing.
- "At least he would listen to us?"
- Well I think it was actually a photo op basically,
which turned sour, and I haven't seen
I did hear somebody say,
"Oh," you know, "He'd been told not to go out
"and about after this incident."
And I thought, "I don't think that will be the case"
but I must say I haven't seen a lot
of media coverage from him.
So it does seem as though he's like,
"Well I've got a big lead,
"your best bet is to stay out of the public eye
"and just let time play out."
- He has to, because his policies are making everyone angry.
- Well, the main thing is, I'll say,
this scheme has been extremely socially regressive.
It's forcing everything onto the...
Our only entry and exit is via the north circular.
It's not being done with our consent.
We elect people to serve us.
The councillors are doing this against us.
This is actually quite a strong labour area, traditionally.
And, and I would say the labour community here
feel pretty woo, you know, winded by this.
- Because they weren't consulted.
- Well we haven't had due process.
There was no reason not to be doing that.
And this has been cooked up over a long period of time.
So the notion that it was COVID that prompted this
all that COVID did was enable it to be imposed
without consultation. - Right.
- There was plenty of time to consult
before COVID came along.
My other gripe here is, you could say,
"Hey, look at this, isn't this wonderful,
"there's no traffic."
If you go around this scheme,
there is incredible displaced traffic.
And they're often the poorer people
and they are getting the pollution somewhere else.
My community is not beyond these,
the confines of this glorified traffic Island,
you know, it goes beyond and we should be treated...
Anything around here can not be done unilaterally.
The bugbear in the room here
is an upgraded section of the North circular.
It was meant to be tunnelled as it was in Edmonton and along.
So, because that never happened,
we had a mini upgrade for the Olympics,
which was just widening junctions, etc.
But since then, they've built very high...
A lot of high rise flats.
There's another proposal,
This is what I wanted to talk to the Mayor about.
If you turn right on this road here
and go that quarter of a mile, you hit the North circular,
literally directly onto the North circular.
There is proposals for a 20 story tower
and a few other towers feet from
the most congested section
one of the most congested sections of the North circular,
which has a lot of stationary traffic.
It's got your traffic lights there as well.
And I'm like, "Well, if this is about cleaning air
"why are you continuing to dump the most vulnerable families
"feet from the main road?"
This is my son, he's in the local school,
which backs onto the North circular.
You're sending more traffic onto there
and, you know it's just,
we need joined up intelligent debate
and we need to be in the picture.
- [Brian] Right, consulted with.
- We end up playing cat and mouse with our council
and our councillors. - Didn't the high court
just rule the streetscape, I mean illegal
because he pushed it through during COVID without proper--
- Well, they've appealed.
- They've appealed, I know.
- As you know, and I think they've got
although the judge initially ruled
that it shouldn't be up here.
You know, it shouldn't be appealable.
I believe they got leave to appeal that.
The main thing is, you know,
COVID has been a very traumatic time for people
and to try and force this through,
because it's about behavioural change
and there was no behavioural change
in the 2018 labour, local election manifesto.
There was a commitment to quieter neighbourhoods.
And in quieter neighbourhoods,
it talked about 20 mile an hour zones and traffic calming.
It did not talk about LTNs.
So we haven't ever had this debate.
And that's, I don't think they had the mandate for this.
And if they want to stand under a mandate
of behavioural change and low traffic neighbourhoods
and they got voted in, I would be more than happy
but that has not been done.
- Right, right, and you weren't consulted with.
- Okay, sorry, any questions?
- No, I mean, I had the same discussion
with a guy named Adam in Ealing.
I was literally doing a food drop to St. John's
and the residents were yelling at me
from every place saying how much they hated the LTNs.
One guy was getting fined for visiting his grandmother.
One guy was, couldn't see, ambulances going through
the local businesses were suffering, emissions were up.
Every single resident was like
literally almost yelling at me.
And I said, "I'm not even the mayor yet."
And they said, "But no, one's come out here to listen to us.
"The council's not listening to us?"
- [Roland] Well, that's the sad thing, I will say.
- And it's been a year, and they feel frustrated.
- And unfortunately the opposition hasn't been out as well.
We have been very forgotten about.
- Yeah, I mean, but the mayor, I think he just assumes
he's going to get everyone's vote.
He assumes he'll be voted labour before he'll vote again.
And so he's not gonna come out here.
And again, I feel like he puts these schemes through
without really talking to the residents
and just thinking about how it's going to affect--
- You need to be engaged, and I think that--
- You have to.
- I mean, this is a prime example here.
I mean you could say
quite simply, people don't know the highway code.
That's what, the lead sponsor, who's Ian Barnes
in the council on this scheme, the political sponsor.
He's the deputy leader of the council.
Unfortunately, we have given him many invites
to come down here and he hasn't engaged with us.
And he's only engaged in community groups.
Just two people from each
they're not allowed to be recorded or shared
again, not democracy in action.
He's been an elected official,
he's from a different ward
about a mile and a half away from here.
So, you know, you need to engage with people,
but you know he'd argue that anyone who drives through there
they should see that's not allowed,
but I freaked out, I've walked along here
and I had to engagement with an Uber driver.
And he said, "Look, sorry, am I all right
"to drive through here?"
And I said, "No, don't do that."
You know, "You will get 120 pound fine" whatever it is.
And he said, "Well, what do you mean?
It's got a picture of the car and a motorcycle"
- It's not obvious. - I know, and it will be nice,
if you just had to cross through it at least,
or at least something to say "Penalties will be given."
And the fact is people don't understand those signs
and I'll tell you how they don't understand them.
They've raised more than a million pounds from these
- [Brian] In so many boroughs.
- Just in Enfield, they're clocking out.
- Adam in Ealing, he thought that was intentional
for the signage to be unclear.
He said, at least put the sign up that tells me--
- It's a honey trap, I've called it a honey trap.
I think it's helping paying for these things.
- [Brain] Yeah, but we're at the worst
recession in 300 years.
- They're meant working for us,
- I know. - not against us.
- How are you gonna tax a citizens
in the worst recession in 300 years
by putting things in an unclear way,
and trying to get them to pay
for a bankrupt transport system
that shouldn't be bankrupt if it was just run differently.
- It's meant to be government by consent,
and that is not what we're seeing.
- Look, you're right to be frustrated, I appreciate that.
I think elected officials should give you answers.
I think they should be transparent.
They should be talking to you on social or in person,
and like I saw you on that video, I remember you.
And again, you were really calm--
- [Roland] Well, I hope I wasn't too heated--
- No you weren't - Because I tell you
it's been extremely frustrating.
I have, you know, I, I have worked to do myself.
We all had to take time out to do this,
and, you know, it just felt
it felt like we were living in a dictatorship.
It's not. - Yeah, yeah.
- It's really not what it's for.
(indistinct chatter)
- Sorry, okay, have you, you've spoken about the shop?
- Yeah, yeah. - Have you?
- Yeah, he was just talking about how his business...
Well, two things, first of all,
you don't see the traffic flow coming here,
so it hurts your business.
And then the traffic, because
the cars-- - Well the passing traffic
- People aren't coming to the shop.
I mean, let's get factual about this, you know,
rat running, which is what the term that's been used a lot.
People taking shortcuts, these things are problems now.
You have a lot of these apps, which will, you know
suggest easy routes. - Right.
This road was worst effected in this area,
along with Brownlow which they're looking at
doing something with, but these things
can all be done through calming
and they can, you know, you can slow traffic right down.
You can have traffic lights that exit
there's already traffic lights at that end,
so you can restrict flows, but to actually cut that off
and to think that traffic is gonna disappear
it just gets squashed somewhere else.
Just like you have a balloon with water
and if you squeeze it,
it's gonna come out somewhere else.
So, you know, you have to take people with you.
And I think this is ideologically led
rather than what can you say, people led,
and that's the main point, really.
- And I think it's all trying to solve a problem
which is to try to raise those tax revenues
to pay for a transport system.
And I think that's completely poorly thought out
same as increasing congestion charge to pay for that.
And I think it needs to be completely rethought
and you need to be consulted
and the businesses have to be consulted.
And if emissions go up and,
and routes go up and businesses go out of business,
then it's clearly not the right thing to do.
- Well I think that's the other point
I mean, when we're actually seeing,
for example, if I,
I'm actually finding my journey's being longer
three times longer sometimes than they were before
to do the same journey
because I'm restricted from this road
and I'm joining more congestion.
So I'm actually emitting three times the pollution
I would have been otherwise.
So these are really sort of strong factors
and the best decisions come out of informed debate
involving different stakeholders,
and that's really not what's happening.
So that's my main concern of things.
- Yeah, and I think that's a big frustration
with the current mayor, he's just not out there
consulting with people. - Really need to.
- It just, it gets by decree.
And again, it doesn't seem,
there just doesn't seem to be an accountability
or any KPI metrics on the back of these things.
Like, is it really helping?
Is it not helping?
Is it hurting the businesses, is it hurting emissions
and that has to be put in place.
- No, they've seen the COVID pandemic
as an opportunity to do unpopular things.
I mean, I know this chap in the shop very well
because I use the shop a lot.
They've literally lost 40% of their trade.
They haven't been consulted properly on this.
It's not, you know, it just came out of the blue.
It's just not the way things are done.
You know, it really isn't.
And, we are, unfortunately we are not
a natural low traffic neighbourhood
because we are a mile, a mile and a half away from
Muswell Hill, Palmer's Green, or Wood Green.
So we're very much, we don't have that...
What you'd normally do with a low traffic neighbourhood
you would have your, trendy high street in the middle,
and you'll get a compass and do a mile and a half around
and say, "Right, there's your low traffic neighbourhood."
But we've actually got to cross into these
displaced traffic roads to go anywhere.
So, you know, it doesn't fit here at all.
It was, it just, it's just not, not being rightly done.
- [Bystander] It really displaces the problem.
- It really does.
- [Bystander] It literally displaces the problem.
- Well, look, I spent the last eight months
trying to find out what the problems are in this city.
I actually just released a manifesto
where I talk about all these issues,
including LTNs and rethinking that,
and my solutions for transport.
I'll get you a copy, but look, I'm just trying to listen
and come up with some independent ideas.
I don't come from a party,
which means I don't have corporate financing
or donors or backroom deals or MPS to worry about.
I just want to see what's best for London.
And this is clearly an issue for you.
- Well we appreciate you coming down
as we appreciate any
any candidate coming down.
we've had, is Farah? - Farah London?
- Yeah, she's, she's, she's been down.
I think she's going to be coming again.
I was working, so I wasn't able see her last time,
but you know, anybody who comes down to see us
is a good thing. - Good.
- And anyone who comes down
we wish you luck in the democratic process.
- Thank you very much, I appreciate that.
And thanks for doing what you did and thanks for,
you know, holding the mayor to task.
And thank you both for the time today.
I really appreciate it.
- We're much grateful to you as well.
- All right, good, thank you. - Thank you so much gentlemen.
- [Man] It's be revelatory, insightful.
- Thanks, Roland. - Thank you.
- We're gonna broadcast this.
- Thank you, very much indeed, for everything.
- Thank you so much sir, appreciate it, all right?
- Thank you so much. - All right, thanks so much.
All right, boo ya.
(thematic score)