Lambeth Kerbside Strategy huge step forward

Lambeth estimates it has 579km of ‘kerbside’ space, 94% of which is used to manage car parking. In January 2023 it published a Kerbside Strategy saying it now wants to work towards ‘reinstating the kerbside as public space’ and has set a target for 25% of kerbside to be allocated for sustainable uses by 2030.

This is important for CPRE London as one of the things we talk about is land-use – and 579km of kerbside is a very large area – 350 acres – of land. For an inner city local authority, that’s public space on significant scale and can’t, and should not, be ignored. We recommend you look through Lambeth’s strategy and ask your own local authority to take similar action to Lambeth. 

For our part, we recently wrote to Camden Council in response to their Local Plan Review consultation, saying: “We estimate that, in land use terms, some 350 acres of land in Camden is kerbside space, most of which is likely to be ‘rented’ cheaply for private car parking. The Local Plan should propose re-allocation of land-use for at least 25% of the estimated 350 acres of kerbside space in Camden – referencing environmental and social goals and establishing an appropriate target for reinstating kerbside as a public space, to be used for everything from bus and cycle lanes, safe cycle storage, shared mobility parking, delivery hubs, rain gardens, tree planting on build-outs, EV charging points on build-outs, parklets, pocket parks, play on the way features/play trails, and whole streetparks (e.g. as per Lambeth Council’s recently published Kerbside Strategy).”

You might also like to look at our work on parking and public realm!

You can also read commentator and journalist Jon Stone’s thread on Lambeth’s Kerbside Strategy here.