- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Tubeless valves
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
news
BBC LTN report"Shameful": BBC "perpetuated falsehoods" in divisive low traffic neighbourhood report
A Labour peer who is a patron of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cycling and Walking says that a BBC News report yesterday on low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) ignored evidence and “perpetuated concerning falsehoods.” Lord Berkeley also said that in the report, the broadcaster had “embarked on its own journey to stir up a manufactured culture war.”
He made the accusations in a letter sent today to David Jordan, the BBC’s Director of Editorial Policy and Standards following the broadcast of the report, which was widely condemned on social media as “one-sided", as we reported on our live blog yesterday.
Our patron Lord @tonyberkeley1 has written to the BBC's Director of Editorial Standards about a report on LTNs. The report "did not contain any data or facts relating to the efficacy of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, as you might expect from the BBC’s Science and Environment unit." pic.twitter.com/uLWgLs7Aeu
— APPGCW (@allpartycycling) March 18, 2021
The report included Ealing Central & Acton Labour MP Rupa Huq – whose constituency lies in the London Borough of Ealing, and who has been a vocal critic of LTNs being rolled out by the Labour controlled council –insisting that they were a more contentious issue than “air strikes on Syria, Brexit and coronavirus.”
> BBC slammed for MP's unchallenged claim that LTNs are more contentious than air strikes on Syria
In his letter, Lord Berkeley said: “I believe that this piece did not meet the required standards of Impartiality … within the BBC Editorial Guidelines.
“The report which was broadcast online and on TV did not contain any data or facts relating to the efficacy of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, as you might expect from the BBC’s Science and Environment Unit. This data is readily available and comprehensive.
“Instead, it perpetuated concerning falsehoods on public safety despite evidence, for example, that introducing Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in Waltham Forest led to an overall reduction of street crime, particularly violent and sexual offences, according to a study. The research shows there was a 10 per cent fall in street crime over one year.”
LTNs, which use bollards and planters to filter out rat-running traffic through residential areas, while maintaining access for residents, the emergency services and others needing access to the area, have been around for decades.
However, the proliferation of such schemes over the past year in response to the coronavirus pandemic, particularly in London, has seen a small but vocal minority emerge that is opposed to them.
Among the arguments deployed against them is that they increase air pollution by creating more congestion on main roads, that they benefit privileged areas at the expense of poorer ones, and that they prevent the police, fire service and ambulance crews from responding to emergencies – all claims that do not stand up to close examination.
But even when councils respond to such concerns, as Ealing did by removing bollards to ensure emergency services would not be held up, instead deploying CCTV cameras, plus appropriate signage highlighting that certain roads were closed to motor vehicles, the council was accused of using LTNs as a revenue-raising scam – a “myth” that also cropped up in the BBC piece.
That led a councillor in Kendal, Cumbria, to brand the piece as “shameful,” adding in a tweet that he could “state with certainty that fines are absolutely nothing to do with raising revenue, and everything to do with disincentivising behaviour.
In the past week, opponents of LTNs have come up with another supposed argument against them, using the murder of Sarah Everard to claim that they may make the streets unsafe for women – although, from what is known of the police investigation to date, it appears that the 33 year old was abducted as she walked home along the busy South Circular Road in Clapham.
The safety of women was an issue that came up in the BBC report, and one that Lord Berkeley referred to in his letter.
“A contributor made a statement that a taxi driver could not access her property and this went unchallenged,” he wrote. “This is not the case in Low Traffic Neighbourhoods where all residential properties remain accessible, albeit via a slightly longer route.”
The peer also brought up another issue highlighted on social media yesterday by Adam Tranter, founder of the Bike Is Better campaign whose members include brands, retailers and organisations within the British cycling industry.
> Criticism floods in for BBC's “one-sided” LTN piece “fuelling culture wars”
“The BBC Impartiality guidelines also cover conduct of staff on social media," Lord Berkely went on. "In relation to a video of a man shouting and swearing near families in a residential street, the reporter Justin Rowlatt described this as ‘brilliant’."
The reporter later claimed that he was using the word as a “euphemism," and it was “not meant as an endorsement."
But Lord Berkeley said: “As somebody who uses a bicycle as a mode of transport, 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.
“Furthermore, multiple instances of illegal behaviour – death threats, criminal damage, driving on the pavement, driving while filming with a mobile phone – were featured without question or comment. Normalising this illegal behaviour as if it is part of normal and reasoned debate is dangerous and has real-world consequences.”
Lord Berkeley continued: “I believe, as do many others, that the BBC has a responsibility to report accurately and fairly on matters relating to the environment and climate change, the biggest challenge of our lifetime.
“The majority of Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions now come from transport with emissions from road transport making up around a fifth of the UK’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
“Rather than have a sensible discussion on how we need to adapt and use our cars less, the BBC embarked on its own journey to stir up a manufactured culture war,” he concluded.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- chrisonabike 1 sec ago
May need insurance, tax and a licence. No problem with the lights though.
- Simon E 15 min 54 sec ago
Yes, they look just like the Lezyne Zecto model. My club bought a couple of sets from the LBS for our midweek TTs so if someone turns up without...
- Hirsute 2 hours 47 min ago
If you can't see a %^$&ing large tractor what ^%$£"!*ing hope is there that you will see a cyclist ?...
- chrisonabike 3 hours 5 min ago
Well if you *can* interview the original riders at all surely they worked, at least?...
- David9694 3 hours 34 min ago
Live: Car plunges over wall and lands on beach rocks...
- biking59boomer 3 hours 40 min ago
Looks like yet another bike share service that's going to fold because of selfish idiots.
- quiff 7 hours 44 min ago
Fair point - I was restricting myself to pedal bikes. As I've never spent that kind of money on anything though (mortgage doesn't count), it's kind...
- brooksby 8 hours 47 min ago
And finally: I wonder how many of the "more than 3,000" signatures on that petition are actually locals, who live or work there (and are not just...
- Doug_D 10 hours 22 min ago
Another book suggestion - I can highly recommend "Lost Summers and Half-Forgotten Afternoons: A Mint Sauce collection" - a beautifully presented...
Add new comment
46 comments
Having worked in the BBC in a technical not editorial capacity I'm aware of the large numbers of people there who get to work by bicycle, at least in West London. I suspect that the concept of balanced reporting applies to almost all supposedly factual output. So not comedy, drama or entertainment for example. The coverage mentioned clearly is supposed to be factual, so his Lordship is correct to ask where are the facts.
I would just reflect that many large organisations are unable to act consistently, despite supposed leadership, and governance.
Given that BBC has a team for Reality Checks, this should be a self-report, like many public services do...
Thanks to those who have complained. I imagine there was an editor responsible, who needs education.
Thanks for the insight (that sounds sarcastic, but it's not supposed to!)
Justin Rowlatt is the BBC Chief Environment Correspondent. Surely that has to be a predominantly fact-led area? So here is an environmental issue, and he covers it like he's Kilroy? I never saw the retraction and apology; was there one?
I haven't heard back yet about the complaint that I made, so they're probably still digesting all the complaints and will respond soon. I haven't had great responses from the previous anti-cycling bias complaints that I've made but they have at least responded.
you wont get a retraction or an apology, it will be some copy/pasted one liner they send to everyone thanking you for your feedback noting your concerns and something about how they always strive for accuracy in their reporting and that this complied with their standards or some such meaningless send to the trash can thing.
I mean I see Justin Rowlatt is already claiming the amount of feedback/controversy its created as evidence that the thrust of the piece, that LTNs are way more controversial than issues like Brexit is backed up
I know loads and loads of people who think the BBC is biased. However, they include both people on the right of the political spectrum who think it is full of woke lefties; and those of the left who think it is in the pocket of the government and Laura Kuenssberg is Johnson's Director of Propaganda.
Which kind of makes me think maybe it isn't biased really, and people just don't like hearing news or opinions which don't fit with their own.
Having said that, this piece on LTNs was unadulterated bulls**t
Hear hear. If they're pissing everyone off then they're doing something right. Or getting it wrong on every count! But declaring 'they're all bloody pinkos / like, crypto-fascists, man' is outright nonsense.
I don't agree with the argument that 'if we're annoying everyone we must be getting it right.'
But it is certainly more nuanced than just the BBC being left or right wing. For example, Laura Kuenssberg is clearly a Tory, and Mark Steel is Labour.
Fair enough, and it's said with tongue wedged firmly in cheek in any case - but in the absence of some kind of definitive system to determine where political bias / leaning falls I think it can be a decent bellwether.
Ah, but I didn't say they were getting everything right: I think they get lots wrong. I just said they did not have a bias (and I meant as an organisation, not individuals or individual reports) towards either end of the political spectrum.
The both sides complain about the Beeb so they cant be biased thing always bugs me as an answer, because its perfectly possible to be biased a certain way on any number of subjects editorially and not always be leaning the same way politically and yet recieve complaints from both ends of the spectrum about it.
I just hope the all party group are prepared to write more letters to media organisations about this stuff, as I suspect there will be more articles presented in the same manner in this weekends papers
Quite, a lib dem may be criticised for being "hard left" by conservatives, and "hard right" by socialists. It still doesn't make them balanced or neutral, unbiased, objective or factual.
Putting my 'serious politics' hat on for a second here, I think that the concept of needing 'balanced' coverage is a nonsense as it automatically skews the centre in favour of the more extreme positions (a centrist position will hardly 'balance' any far-left or -right positions) and the Beeb seem to have taken it to mean 'we must have dissenting voices, regardless of how settled the facts of the matter are' - how else to explain away the ubiquity of Farage, or Lawson spouting nonsense about the climate.
I'm much more in favout of 'neutral' being the default position, but it's difficult to imagine that journalists working at the Beeb are immune to the same sort of click-chasing sensationalism that informs so much news 'content'. And don't get me wrong, I'm not clutching at pearls and complaining about how things are nowadays, but I do feel that 'trusted to present facts rather than polemic' is a quality that's considered less important by the average punter in our digital age.
I agree entirely, the left and right position's don't need to be "balanced". If someone is citing a fact, you don't need to find someone from the other end of the spectrum to make some shit up for "balance". If one quotes a fact and the other a falsehood the falsehood needs to be challenged - there is no neutral or balanced position in this, and the journalist has a responsibility to step up. If a journalist does not have enough grasp of the facts to do this effectively they are reporting the wrong subject matter.
You're only saying that because you don't like hearing news or opinions which don't fit with [your] own.
Ah, yes. But my opinion is right, so that's ok.
I couldn't agree more
STEVE FOR PRESIDENT. WHO IS WITH US?
Here's some examinations of BBC political bias:
Centre-left: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/bbc/
Centre: https://www.allsides.com/news-source/bbc-news-media-bias
Or is it centre-right: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bbc-bias-jeremy-corbyn-labour-centre-right-robbie-gibb-theresa-may-laura-keunssberg-andrew-marr-a7844826.html
An organisation the size of the BBC with such hugely varied output and huge range of contributors surely won't have a single point on the political spectrum.
Laura K and the BBC News team have come under sustained criticism for the way they 'report' the news and some of the unnamed sources they use whle they and shows like Marr appear not to put ministers under adequate scrutiny. Perhaps that's my bias but Boris & co seem to get a relatively easy ride.
Someone cynical might suggest that it's because of the constant threats from the Tories of defunding. However, those who are familiar with my posts will know that cynicism is not my style.....
Neither is sarcasm.
My verdict from random googling for BBC bias is that they're either centre or centre-left. My personal take is that they're centre-right but I mainly just look at their headlines and read the occasional article so I'm not confident in my assessment. I don't watch much of their TV output though I still catch up with Doctor Who (I'm not a big fan of Jodie's interpretation - I preferred Jo Martin in Fugitive of the Judoon or Peter Capaldi though they gave him some rubbish stories). Also their Lovecraftian radio plays are really good.
Have you checked out The Lovecraft Investigations podcast?
So far I've only got around to listening to The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (which is excellent) but I've got the others downloaded for future use. Some of my fellow cultists have enthused about Shadow Over Innsmouth and Whisperer in the Darkness.
Link for anyone interested: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06spb8w
They're really cool..
The conservatives have wanted the bbc to be privatised for years.
They had no chance then they came up with a new strategy...make non Tory voters hate it too and hey presto! ABOLISH IT!!!
Same ol' same ol'. Deliberately run down a highly successful and efficient (if imperfect) public service then voters will allow you to sell it off cheap to your friends.
#standard
If you think the BBC is unbiased and fit for purpose in this century then you must live in London. Poll after poll has shown that the majority of people in all parts of the UK rank it as very biased, not representative of them, detached from reality, and it needs to change. Failure to change will fuel calls to defund it. The BBC is a vehicle for propaganda, biased news, and far left opinions. We deserve better from a service we have to pay for by law.
It is not funny at all having these rabid Kippers on here.
It's almost as if those "rabid anti-Tories" are actually "Rabid Anti-Incompetence-and/or-corruption"
I mean, why would you artificially limit your criticism to arbitrary categories of people?
It's almost like he's trying to shoe-horn divisive partisan politics into every possible topic.
Not our Nige.....
Cool story bro
Pages