ON behalf of Ealing Liberal Democrat council group, I raised an oral question in the full council meeting that any consultation must consult both those who surround an LTN (Low Traffic Neighbourhood scheme) as well as those living in an LTN, and Ealing Labour agreed to that.

This week, the Council delivered consultation leaflets to the doorsteps in or around the nine LTNs.

Sadly some of the text in the leaflets was very biased and did not appear to refer to the problems that many people are having.

I am concerned that an insufficient number of people who surround an LTN will be consulted from the tone and wording of the leaflet.

When Ealing Council analyses the results in a month or so, I think that any LTN which has a majority of people against the LTNs (either in or the surrounding area), should have those LTNs removed immediately.

A key area of concern is that Ealing Council are delaying Liberal Democrats' repeated requests to do a similar consultation on Fishers Lane scheme.

This is unacceptable because it is essentially the same scheme in its nature and purpose, and affects the daily lives of people in the neighbourhood in similar ways.

The Council has claimed it will review the Fishers Lane scheme, but we have no details of how this will take place and whether people will be given the chance to say they want to retain or remove the Fishers Lane scheme.

I have met a number of stakeholder groups in the meantime.

They are concerned that despite early warm signals from Ealing Labour leader Peter Mason (such as removal of LTN 21), they are now less keen on direct interaction, with communications done via press releases instead.

Furthermore, Ealing Labour have not been clear with how decisions will be taken once the consultation forms have been completed.

But Ealing Council should have taken the words of the police, ambulance services and women's groups into account.

The Commissioner of London Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick has stated that LTNs made it 'harder for [police] officers to get through streets and roads they could previously get through much faster'.

Ealing Liberal Democrats will continue to campaign for the removal of remaining LTNs in Ealing.

The Liberal Democrat group will also continue to meet and communicate with many stakeholder and campaign groups (such as One Ealing) and will make sure that the voices of disabled, elderly, carers, ambulance services and people who rely on their vehicle to work are not ignored.

I urge everyone who can, to ensure they have their say in the LTN consultation.

The closing date is July 23.

*This article is part of the weekly column provided to Nub News by the leader of the Ealing Liberal Democrats, Councillor Gary Malcolm.

• The leaders of the other two main Ealing parties (Labour and Conservatives) have also been offered that opportunity, but so far have chosen not to take it.