Council being "economical with the truth" about emergency services

Our members have spoken to so many people on the ground, firefighters, police officers, paramedics who all say that the Waltham Forest road closures have affected their response times. One paramedic even said "Mini Holland has caused fatalities (mainly stroke and heart-attack)"

The Council however maintains that they consult all the emergency services and they are all perfectly happy with the closures.

There seemed to be some mis-match here, so we put in a Freedom of Information request on the latest road closures in the "Hilltop" area E17.

THIS IS THE RESPONSE

WFS4A , not the Fire Service, have put some of the text in red to highlight key points

From: FOX, JO <JO.FOX@london-fire.gov.uk> Date: Fri, Aug 14, 2020 at 5:13 PM Subject: DPA 5244.1 People Friendly Streets To: WFStreets forAll <infowfstreets4all@gmail.com> Cc: LFB Information Access <obj-EXC-SharedMailbox-InformationAccess@london-fire.gov.uk>

Thank you for your recent request for information that has been considered under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

In your email, received on the 16 July 2020, you asked for the following information:

Please can you send us your response to the Hilltop ETO T26 (20) The Council tell us you were consulted and were quite happy, but when we liaised with you the first time round you said you were NOT happy with having to reverse such long distances especially up and down hills. Thank you and thank you for all the work you do on behalf of the community. The roads involved are all in London E17. They include Howard Road, Rectory Road, Church Hill, The Drive, Falmer Road, Hurst Road, Seaford Rd.

To respond to your request for the information, you have asked for a copy of our response to the Waltham Forest, I contacted the Station Commander who has confirmed that Waltham Forest did consult with us on the proposals and it was observed that the proposals for that area could impact on response times.

From: Redacted (SC) Sent: 23 June 2020 11:27 To: Redacted Subject: FW: LBWF Intention to make experimental traffic orders on 02/07/20 - eff. 09/07/20 - Hilltop modal filters - section between Forest Rd E17 and Church Hill E17

Dear all,

Thank you for the attached files.

As discussed at other meetings regarding modal filters and road closures, all modal filters and road closures will impact on the attendance times of all our emergency vehicles. Can these observations please be added to your files.

I will endeavour to get these restrictions mapped and timed in order for us to assess the impact to our attendance.

Kind Regards

Redacted

Station Commander

F30 Leytonstone and F29 Leyton