Correct use of highway=living_street is quite rare in the UK and in urban areas is designated (and signed with TSRGD diagram 881) as a Home Zone.

This is not the case here, as it is explicitly signed as a pedestrian zone (TSRGD diagram 618.3, pre-2016) in the Bing street side imagery.

The argument in your early changeset #132874014 the a pedestrian way cannot have separate sidewalks seems a little flawed.

Adding access=yes and motor_vehicle=designated to an explicitly signed pedestrian zone, will have caused routing errors.

Fixed in https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/145649086