Green transport measures at the ballot box: The role of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in the 2022 London local elections

Like many green transport policies that restrict car use, England’s Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) have been controversial, with some schemes removed amidst local backlash and fervent online debate. Although overt policymaker support may facilitate LTN implementation, evidence on any electoral consequences remains limited. This paper combines electoral data with Twitter data on councillors’ tweets and stances on LTNs, based on sentiment analysis. It uses these two datasets to examine how tweeting about and/or publicly supporting LTNs affected the probability of incumbent Labour councillors being re-elected and the change in their relative vote shares at the 2022 London local elections. Using regression analysis, we find that neither tweeting at all about LTNs nor tweeting positively about LTNs reduced London Labour councillors’ relative vote shares, nor their chances of being re-elected. Rather, we found tentative evidence of a positive, albeit weak, electoral impact of tweeting positively about LTNs. Despite controversy and local exceptions, engaging positively on Twitter about LTNs seems not to have been politically damaging for incumbent Labour councillors. This is an important finding given the ongoing likely use of social media to build support for contentious but effective environmental policies.