New Healthy Streets Scorecard published

Five London boroughs which encourage active travel have gained awards for their achievements in enhancing public health.

The boroughs, representing inner and outer London, lead the way in lowering speeds, controlling parking, and prioritising public transport – all measures that have been shown to improve health and wellbeing.

Top performing London Boroughs in the Healthy Streets Scorecard for 2023 are City, Islington, Hackney and Camden, with Southwark moving past Westminster to gain a Top 5 slot.

• What connects rural England and healthy streets in London?

The Healthy Streets coalition – a group of health, environment and transport campaigners – publishes an annual Scorecard giving marks to boroughs delivering six key measures shown to reduce car use and enable active travel.

These comprise Low Travel Neighbourhoods, 20 mph speed limits, controlled parking, bus priority, protected cycle lanes and safe ‘School Streets’. All have a big impact, often literally overnight, on residents’ health.

Around 38% of adults and 66% of children in London don’t reach recommended amounts of physical activity and nearly
40% of all children in London are overweight or obese. Childhood obesity often leads to diabetes and high blood pressure, along with mental health problems.

Walking and cycling are the main forms of exercise in the UK and are linked to lowering the Body Mass Index of both children and adults and leading to healthier and happier outcomes. Boroughs can take many steps to improve the chances of residents taking up these options, as well as reducing air pollution.

At the bottom of the the 2023 table are Hillingdon, Bexley and Havering, with car-dominated environments which discourage residents from switching to public transport, walking and cycling.

Congratulating the winning boroughs, Alice Roberts, Head of Campaigns, CPRE London, said: ‘People who have a physically active lifestyle have a 20-35% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease and stroke compared to those who have a sedentary lifestyle.

‘Regular physical activity is also associated with a reduced risk of diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis and colon/breast cancer and with improved mental health. It is absolutely shocking that boroughs are failing to deliver the streets we need to avoid these devastating diseases.”

Five top boroughs given awards

This year, the coalition presented awards to five boroughs:

Healthy Streets Scorecard overall winner:

City of London – the London area with the highest overall Healthy Streets score leads the way on delivering schemes for walking, wheeling & cycling, as well as public transport, and reducing and restricting car use.

It may have an inherent advantage on scores given its small number of residents, but its transport strategy is widely lauded as visionary and the City’s actions often exceed their words – with schemes such as Bank Junction, Aldgate Square and the upcoming St Paul’s scheme.

• Top Inner London borough:

Islington – progress on delivery may have slowed slightly from the start of the pandemic but Islington is the top-scoring Scorecard inner London borough for good reason, with high levels of delivery on 20mph speed limits, bus priority, LTNs, school provision and controlled parking.

• Top Outer London borough:

Waltham Forest – the north-east London borough is becoming famous, and has won several major awards, for delivering Healthy Streets schemes. It was one of three outer London boroughs awarded £30 million from the Mayor’s “mini-Holland” programme in 2013. Its schemes from that period are class-leading and continue to set a quality bar the rest of London struggles to match. And it has since gone on year after year to deliver more.

Some boroughs have scored higher (or lower) than we would expect given their housing density. The more densely populated boroughs have an advantage in the Scorecard, so we now also publish data showing the actual scores boroughs achieve compared to the score they are predicted to achieve based on their housing density.
• Inner London Borough outscoring on housing density:

Camden – Camden is a high-performing inner London borough on the Scorecard year after year, but it notably delivers beyond its expected score when adjusted for density compared to other inner London boroughs.

• Outer London borough outscoring on housing density:

Richmond – Richmond is a relatively affluent and low-density outer London borough but far outperforms similar boroughs on delivery of Healthy Streets measures. Its delivery of 20mph speed limits on borough-controlled roads is particularly impressive.

New measures for 2023

The Healthy Streets Scorecard coalition continues to upgrade and develop new measures to improve the accuracy of
its data and develop and introduce new scores every year. The Scorecard is now arguably the most advanced tool for measuring council progress on measures to reduce car use and help London cut emissions and be healthier.

This year, the coalition has mapped Controlled Parking Zones to improve data on that metric; and developed a new scoring system based partially on ‘opportunity to park’ with entire borough, or large, zones, allowing residents to park anywhere, scored lower than smaller zones based on a few streets.

For full details and scores for other boroughs see http://www.healthystreetsscorecard.london

For more on how CPRE helps protect London’s environment see Healthy streets Archives – CPRE London

We are currently urgently seeking funding for our Healthy Streets work.  If you able to give personally, please do so here.  We would also welcome introductions to trusts and foundations that may be able to help.