A survey used by a west London council to justify a low traffic neighbourhood has been found to have breached four industry rules.
Labour-run Hammersmith and Fulham Council introduced a low traffic neighbourhood in south Fulham in December 2022 to reduce ‘rat-running’ - and resultant pollution - on residential streets by out-of-borough drivers.
Hammersmith and Fulham “set out to end a decades-old congestion and pollution problem” on the streets west of Wandsworth Bridge Road, according to council documents, after the issue became worse due to more motorists using sat-navs.
Last year, the council made the scheme permanent following “the most extensive consultation and engagement exercise for a traffic project in [its] history”.
At the time, officers said there was clear support from residents after conducting "one of the most comprehensive ever surveys undertaken in this country into a neighbourhood traffic scheme".
But, the consultation was reported to the Market Research Society (MRS) amid claims it was "not transparent".
The MRS found the company hired to do the research, Opinium, breached four industry rules, explaining that it did not take enough action “to ensure that participants were not led towards a particular point of view”.
Campaigners have insisted that the ruling is proof that LTNs are being pushed through despite public opinion, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
Council documents from last year show that Opinium carried out “representative sample opinion polling” by door-to-door canvassing residents in the so-called Clean Air Neighbourhood area as well as the rest of the borough.
It found that 59 per cent of residents living in the Clean Air Neighbourhood area “either strongly supported or supported the general principle of reducing the amount of out-of-borough traffic using neighbourhood streets as cut-throughs”.
Meanwhile, 20% "either strongly opposed or opposed" that objective.
The company also held an online survey, which found that 65 per cent of 1,989 responses received supported that same "general principle".
The council documents also show that Hammersmith and Fulham received hundreds of negative emails about its two Clean Air Neighbourhoods schemes.
Nearly half (43%) of the 1,743 emails sent to the council during a trial period for the low traffic neighbourhoods were negative about the schemes.
The MRS found that Opinium "did not take reasonable action to ensure that participants were not led towards a particular point of view", and failed to give participants "the required information".
David Tarsh, a resident in the borough, told the Telegraph: "The survey was a sham. This ruling is highly significant, because in 2023, LBHF was facing a dilemma: its temporary traffic scheme around the Wandsworth Bridge Road was raising around a million pounds a month in revenue from fines, huge sums it wanted to keep flowing, but, by law, the scheme should be dismantled unless the council could show it had local support.
The two Clean Air Neighbourhoods in south Fulham collected around £11.8m last year in fines in 2023, the local authority previously revealed.
James Endersby, the chief executive of Opinium, said: "We were pleased to see its conclusion that no corrective steps were necessary, but we had already reviewed this study many months ago and put in place additional layers of quality checking in our ongoing commitment to high standards."
