How healthy and safe are your borough’s streets?

Progress on making London’s streets healthy and safe is far too slow to meet the Mayor’s own targets, say transport campaigners as they launch a new website where Londoners can see where their borough ranks.

CPRE London is proud to be coordinating the London Boroughs Healthy Streets Scorecard Coalition, which has for the second year running published the London Borough Healthy Streets Scorecard.

Campaigners from CPRE London, London Living Streets, London Cycling Campaign, Sustrans, RoadPeace, Mums for Lungs and Future Transport London have formed a coalition to track council progress on the Mayor’s “Healthy Streets” indicators year-on-year.

London’s boroughs are scored on their implementation of five key measures that will dramatically improve air quality and road safety, boost active lifestyles and reduce carbon emissions:

1. Borough-wide Low Traffic Neighbourhoods
2. A default 20mph speed limit on all borough and Transport for London controlled roads
3. Borough-wide controlled parking
4. Protected cycle lanes on main roads
5. Traffic-free streets around all schools and safe walking and cycling routes to school

New data published on the 6th July indicates that progress over the past year has been too slow to meet the Mayor’s Transport Strategy target. One key result is that car registrations in London have reduced by just 268 over one year, falling short of the Mayor’s target which calls for 12,500 fewer cars per year, every year until 2041.

The results show that London’s boroughs, the Mayor and Transport for London need to do more to tackle the climate emergency, enable a ‘green recovery’, tackle inactivity levels that cripple NHS budgets, and to achieve the Mayor’s “Vision Zero” on road danger.

While the  scorecard reflects the health of boroughs’ streets up to March 2020, we recognise that much good work is being done in response to Covid-19 such as the Mayor’s ‘Streetspace for London’ plan.

Alice Roberts, Head of Green Space Campaigns at CPRE London said:

“The pace of change was excruciatingly slow before we encountered Covid-19, with little or no progress in many if not most parts of London, even though we’re facing air pollution and climate crises. Boroughs are now working hard to put in emergency measures to make sure people can walk and cycle safely as we emerge from lockdown, and that’s great. But our council leaders need to be much bolder and make major changes in the coming years.”

The combination of spatial planning and transport strategy are integral to the health and wellbeing of our streets. We are calling for the implementation of transport infrastructure centred on walking, cycling and public transport, as well as car-share schemes, new ‘car-free’ residential units and smart spatial planning which tackles the issue of open green space deficiency. These measures are included in our joint manifesto A More Natural Capital which calls for the next Mayor of London to create a healthier streets and a greener city for all.

The Healthy Streets Scorecard website will help boroughs compare how well they are doing in relation to other boroughs and identify areas for future action. Find out how your borough scores on the new website which launched on the 6th July:

London Boroughs Healthy Streets Scorecard