Protests and celebrations sat cheek-by-jowl as families in the two halves of Bow got to grips today with Tower Hamlets Council plans to ban through traffic in their adjoining neighbourhoods.

%image(14918473, type="article-full", alt="Teaching assistant Katie Ashcroft isn't a car owner, but thinks traffic ban down 'The Roman' would harm the area. Pcture: Mike Brooke")

The scheme effectively draws a north-south line between the adjoining Bow East and Bow West polling districts with suggested traffic barriers, bus gates that let only public transport through and paving over some roads.

The public consultations started two weeks ago brought out both protesters and revellers into the Saturday sunshine to show which side they were on.

A petition to stop the bus gate facing the famous Roman Road Market has been launched by campaigners worried that it will discourage shoppers.

They set up their campaign HQ outside the Albert pub with a table and petition for passers-by to sign with sanitisers at hand as a Covid precaution. Leaflets are being distributed street-by-street to households because they say the council’s electronic online consultation doesn’t make clear the full impact of the ‘bus gate’ proposed right opposite the pub.

%image(14918474, type="article-full", alt="Children play hopscotch in the street like kids did back in the 1960s, with this new traffic ban in Old Ford Road. Picture: Mike Brooke")

But a rival table was also set up half-a-mile to the north at the 200-year-old Skew Bridge in Old Ford Road that crosses the Hertford Cut, by Victoria Park, which has been shut to traffic as a trial run when lockdown began.

Children were playing hopscotch in the road where the B118 traffic had been running.

Two doctors and a university lecturer were among families with their children as well as cyclists, all calling for cleaner air by making the barrier permanent.

Meanwhile, the “Roman Roaders” HQ on almost the same grid line as the Skew Bridge separating the two Bow districts east and west have notched up 8,000 supporters on their “save our streets” Facebook page demanding no bus gates or road closures.

%image(14918475, type="article-full", alt="Carlton Bolter... "It's terrible carving up Bow down the middle, the rich half and the poor half." Picture: Mike Brooke")

“I was annoyed that my area was going to be calved in half,” petition organiser Carlton Bolter told the East London Advertiser.

“It’s ridiculous having to make detours in my car five times as long just to shop locally. This scheme is about pollution — but detours give out more emissions.”

The 50-year-old building works manager, who has just recovered from Covid-19 after 17 days’ illness, has lost 70 per cent of his work and now worries that a bus gate and other barriers will stop life getting back to normal.

“It’s terrible carving up Bow down the middle,” he argues. “Barriers drive division between Bow East and Bow West, the rich half and the poor half.”

%image(14918476, type="article-full", alt="Dr Jude Partridge and her children come out in support of closing Old Ford Road's Skew Bridge to traffic to make air cleaner. Picture: Mike Brooke")

Another petition organiser, Paul Wellington, 56, predicts the bus gate would kill off the market once and for all, with all the parking restrictions that have already been brought in.

He points out: “The council put in so many restrictions that shoppers don’t come to ‘The Roman’ any more and go to Romford or Dagenham instead. This market is on its knees. Stopping traffic will be its death.”

Taxi-driver Sean Paul-Day is making a video documentary for the cab trade about the proposals which he says makes some journeys twice as long or even impossible when added to similar schemes across London.

But the families in Old Ford Road living by Vicky Park didn’t mind the Skew Bridge over the canal being blocked to traffic which now has to divert to Mile End to get through.

%image(14918325, type="article-full", alt="Skew Bridge on B118 Old Ford Road is closed after campaign by cyclists... but it's throwing traffic back onto Roman Road. Picture: Mike Brooke")

University lecturer James Price, 45, was out with his two children enjoying fresh air without traffic.

His wife Claire said: “The barrier reduces pollution. But I do understand the traffic is now worse for families the other side of the roundabout. The road closure needs to be holistic in thinking about how it impacts on people. There are a lot of people upset about this and I understand that.”

Their neighbour Dr Rob Hughes, 37, who works at the London School of Hygene and Medicine and for the Clean Air Fund, has observed an improvement in air quality.

He points out “things like nitro-oxide are nasty which come from cars and vans”, then adds: “The idea that this is really a middle class thing is dangerous because low-income families have worse lung-capacity and are affected more by air pollution than the middle-class.”

%image(14918326, type="article-full", alt="Cllr Dan Tomlinson face to face with Roman Road traffic ban protesters. Picture: Mike Brooke")

Back at Roman Road, however, traders fear losing business if shoppers can’t drive in. They meet two Tower Hamlets councillors on their fact-finding mission.

Cabinet member Dan Tomlinson, leading on environment issues at the town hall, wants to hear both sides for the consultation “with the option of saying ‘no’ to things”.

He explains: “We’ve put forward the bus gate idea to stop through traffic with three closure options — peaktime, all day 7am-7pm and 24/7.”

But he was button holed in the street by campaigner Carlton Bolter, explaining that the bus gate at any time would stop people supporting local shops.

%image(14918324, type="article-full", alt="Cllr Dan Tomlinson... "I'm in Roman Road to hear both sides." Picture: Mike Brooke")

Campaigners feel these options in the online questionnaire give the impression that it’s a “done deal” because it doesn’t go into a “no bus gate” alternative.

The other councillor turning up, Abdul Ullah, arrives from his Wapping constituency where the East End’s first bus gate was put up last year. He admits “there are concerns about lack of access” in Roman Road, but says it’s important to make sure businesses and households aren’t “left behind” if there’s going to be another bus gate in an area far busier than Wapping. He is in Roman Road to listen.

But traders worry about being isolated by such traffic restrictions, after seeing the chaos in Bow last summer when the council tried a temporary bus gate off Fairfield Road — which had to be scrapped after one day.

One protester at the time, Sabina Music, actually sat down in the road in front of a bus.

%image(14918326, type="article-full", alt="Cllr Dan Tomlinson face to face with Roman Road traffic ban protesters. Picture: Mike Brooke")

Sabina’s furniture craftsman husband Ned, one of a group of enterprises in Autumn Street, was back this week protesting at the bus gate scheme in Roman Road.

He told the Advertiser: “Businesses need access for vehicles and more electric charge points, not barriers. Some of us are going over to electric vans, but don’t have enough charging points. We need access into central London.”

The councillors were also consulting on whether Roman Road market should be pedestrianised every day. At the moment it’s free for traffic on non-market days.

The traders feel traffic could be discouraged by other means, rather than a bus gate dividing the two halves of Bow.