Forum Topic

Are Hounslow Cycling misrepresenting members numbers to Scrutiny Committee?

Has Hounslow Cycling a membership of 10,000 or is that the London Cycling Campaign, for the whole of London, across 33 boroughs and 9m people?  Looks like it must be the London Cycling Campaign from their website.  It would be helpful to know as it is clear from a recent submission from Hounslow Cycling to the Council that they are clearly trying to infer that it is 10,000 in Hounslow rather than the whole of London. This question has arisen from simply having watched Social Media feeds last night and this morning - that alerts the reader that it is quite clear that something is going amiss with the inclusion of papers for the Overview and Scrutiny Committee set for Monday.  So I decided to go to the Council website and track down the documents to see what all the fuss was about.You can do this too at:https://democraticservices.hounslow.gov.uk/documents/g12025/Public reports pack Monday 30-Nov-2020 18.00 Overview and Scrutiny Committee.pdf?T=10If you get to page 65 onwards to page 81 you can see submissions from external parties.  From what is being said on social media 16 pages simply does not represent the number of submissions that sought to provide evidence on the 5 key points for or against the reason for the 2 call ins: Inadequate consultation with stakeholders prior to the decision;Inadequate evidence on which to base a decision;The action is not proportionate to the desired outcome;A potential human rights or equalities challenge;Insufficient consideration of legal and financial advice.Appears that those saying there is clear evidence to back the call ins are most disgruntled. It is also interesting to observe that 2 identical submissions from Hounslow Cycling are simply partially copied. Was that a form letter sent in or a copying error made by the officers.  One of those says "Hounslow Cycling is the borough group of London Cycling Campaign, a membership charity with 10,000 members".So the question is as a member of the Scrutiny Committee do I read that as it is Hounslow Cycling that has 10,000 members or do I know that it the total membership of London Cycling Campaign, across 33 boroughs and 9m people?   About 0.11% of the population.  So what is the answer? 

Chris Soze ● 2160d11 Comments

Chris, your link just brings up a "page unavailable" message.

Bruce Hammal ● 2160d

HmmmTry the link below, or simply go via a search engine to Hounslow Council Overview and Scrutiny Committee meetings - 30 November and look at the Agenda Reports packhttps://democraticservices.hounslow.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=211&MId=12021&Ver=4

Chris Soze ● 2160d

https://democraticservices.hounslow.gov.uk/documents/g12025/Public%20reports%20pack%20Monday%2030-Nov-2020%2018.00%20Overview%20and%20Scrutiny%20Committee.pdf?T=10Worked for me

Bernard Allen ● 2160d

Thanks - both of those links work.

Bruce Hammal ● 2160d

I made the mistake of reading the document.  It seems to me that the assessment of the various schemes is potentially defective is many different ways:1. There is no published criteria for what would constitute "success" for the temporary schemes2. There is no or inadequate  consideration of where traffic displaced by one or more of the schemes then goes.  There seems to be an assumption that the bulk of the traffic simply vanishes.3. Whilst rightly lauding the rise in cycling & walking in the first lockdown there is also a failure to consider whether that was driven by the time of year and good weather.  It is pretty obvious that it is a lot easier to go cycling on a warm dry day in June than a cold & wet day in November4. The reality is that we have no idea whether the pandemic driven changes in transport, both public & private, will have large scale lasting effects - I somehow doubt it but would be happy to be wrong.5. LBH "solution" to congestion and pollution is a multitude of schemes which have caused even more congestion!

Justin Stephenson ● 2160d

I read it too. What a lot of words though I wonder how much of this is smoke and mirrors. Looking at the graph for "Public Transport Use and Cycling During Lockdown" I'm struggling to reconcile the words with the image. The accompanying text reads: "Public transport use in London was even more severely affected with tube and rail services falling to a low of 5% of expected patronage. By the end of August, levels of use had still not recovered and even on buses, trips remained at 50% of the levels seen in 2019.
In contrast, the number of cycling trips were boosted to 150%, made up from a huge growth in leisure cycling but also commuters wishing to avoid public transport and the car either because they had no access to a vehicle or did not wish to use it." Is it my eyes or does the graph show that after the highlighted 150% rise in cycling in May, by August, levels were very nearly back to those of March,  a fact not mentioned in the text. I wonder what levels are like now we have entered the winter months? Anybody care to explain this to me? If I'm wrong, I'm happy to be corrected.

Bruce Hammal ● 2160d

I read it too. What a lot of words though I wonder how much of this is smoke and mirrors. Looking at the graph for "Public Transport Use and Cycling During Lockdown" I'm struggling to reconcile the words with the image. The accompanying text reads: "Public transport use in London was even more severely affected with tube and rail services falling to a low of 5% of expected patronage. By the end of August, levels of use had still not recovered and even on buses, trips remained at 50% of the levels seen in 2019.
In contrast, the number of cycling trips were boosted to 150%, made up from a huge growth in leisure cycling but also commuters wishing to avoid public transport and the car either because they had no access to a vehicle or did not wish to use it." Is it my eyes or does the graph show that after the highlighted 150% rise in cycling in May, by August, levels were very nearly back to those of March,  a fact not mentioned in the text. I wonder what levels are like now we have entered the winter months? Anybody care to explain this to me? If I'm wrong, I'm happy to be corrected.

Bruce Hammal ● 2160d

I read it too. What a lot of words though I wonder how much of this is smoke and mirrors. Looking at the graph for "Public Transport Use and Cycling During Lockdown" I'm struggling to reconcile the words with the image. The accompanying text reads: "Public transport use in London was even more severely affected with tube and rail services falling to a low of 5% of expected patronage. By the end of August, levels of use had still not recovered and even on buses, trips remained at 50% of the levels seen in 2019.
In contrast, the number of cycling trips were boosted to 150%, made up from a huge growth in leisure cycling but also commuters wishing to avoid public transport and the car either because they had no access to a vehicle or did not wish to use it." Is it my eyes or does the graph show that after the highlighted 150% rise in cycling in May, by August, levels were very nearly back to those of March,  a fact not mentioned in the text. I wonder what levels are like now we have entered the winter months? Anybody care to explain this to me? If I'm wrong, I'm happy to be corrected.

Bruce Hammal ● 2160d

Apologies for the triplication - blame the "new" W4.com website which seems to have gone mad!

Bruce Hammal ● 2160d

Interesting data.  It is clear with Lockdown 2 that cycling at weekends for exercise is up (as is running), as you cannot access Gyms, and families are rightly out and about to get out of the house.  Much more reduced during the week from my experience.

David Riley ● 2159d

What bothers me is that this is from an official council document. Editorialising should have no place there.

Bruce Hammal ● 2159d