Politicians should be subject to stricter rules on spreading disinformation or wild claims for which there is scant evidence, the thinktank Demos has urged, after senior members of the UK government repeated conspiracy theories on 15-minute cities.
Parliament’s ethics and standards watchdog should urgently review its requirements to ensure ministers were truthful and accurate in their communications on contentious issues, and avoid spreading disinformation that can polarise debate, the thinktank said in a report on low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs).
Central government had created serious problems for local authorities with its wild swings on the issue of LTNs, Demos added, as ministers first enthusiastically backed such schemes and ordered them to be implemented swiftly during the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020, then veered away when their unpopularity among some motorists became apparent.
The government is now seeking to limit local authorities’ ability to implement the schemes, even though a report commissioned by ministers found they were popular and beneficial.
The health minister Maria Caulfield repeated the untrue claim that plans for 15-minute cities – a term coined to describe livable communities where amenities such as GP surgeries, shops and leisure facilities are within walkable distance for most people – would include a road toll on anyone travelling by car more than 15 minutes from home.
Mark Harper, a transport minister, went further and endorsed false claims that LTNs are a means to prevent people travelling outside their local area without permission.
The Demos report also found a “democratic chasm” in local authorities implementing LTNs, accusing them of failing to provide sufficient information before imposing the schemes. The loss of local newspapers and other media has also contributed to a lack of space for reasonable debate on the issue, with the absence of local news in many areas pushing people towards social media, where the debate on LTNs rapidly turned toxic, the Demos report found.
The authors of the report published on Wednesday examined more than 570,000 social media posts, and interviewed 47 people in six focus groups, as well as 24 local politicians and journalists, from three areas where LTNs were introduced: Oxford, Enfield and Rochdale.
The authors found that central government had failed to give consistent direction, while local governments had not consulted people sufficiently before implementing LTNs. They found that from 2020 to 2022, the social media posts on LTNs that had most engagement were evenly split between supporters and opponents. However, by 2023 this had skewed dramatically, to a point where 79% of the most engaged-with posts were strongly anti-LTN.
Demos called for government funding of local news as a way of assisting greater scrutiny of LTNs.
Hannah Perry, lead researcher on social media for Demos, said: “An instruction to act ‘swiftly’, combined with historic funding constraints, led to serious shortcomings in the way the councils engaged citizens in LTN implementation. However, instead of working to bring a sense of calm, the government performed a screeching U-turn, in both policy and rhetoric, and ultimately fed the public backlash. Our analysis shows how this pivot coincided with the spike in LTN-related disinformation.”
She warned: “It is absolutely essential that lessons are learned and that we radically transform how democracy takes place locally. There is a worsening democratic chasm between councils and communities. We are calling for a new layer of participation so that our local politicians can foster constructive relationships with citizens, working in partnership with them, not against them.”
LTN proponents disagreed with several of Demos’s contentions. Andrew Gant, the Liberal Democrat cabinet member for transport management on Oxfordshire county council, said he did not recognise the claim of a democratic chasm.
“It’s difficult to feel more exposed to demos, democracy and the people than I am on this issue,” he said. “There is a local democracy strategy, it’s called elections and they work.”
Studies and international examples have found that restricting motor vehicle access can result in cleaner air, more people venturing out to shop and socialise, healthier habits as people walk or cycle more, and a higher quality of life.
Gant said: “LTNs are not a political failure, they are a triumphant success.”
