Focus of work
The eight transport, health, road safety and environmental campaign groups which form the London Boroughs Healthy Streets Scorecard coalition want all London boroughs to implement five key measures. These measures will dramatically improve air quality and road safety, boost active lifestyles and reduce carbon emissions – often literally overnight. They are: (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 zones (4) Protected cycle lanes on main roads and (5) Traffic-free streets around all schools and safe walking and cycling routes to school. The London Boroughs Healthy Streets Scorecard shows to what extent London boroughs are putting in place these five key measures – what are called ‘input’ indicators. It also sets out data to show the health of each borough’s streets – what are called ‘outcome’ indicators. By combining the scores for the nine indicators, each borough is given a final Healthy Streets score. The hope is that it will help councils and residents compare how well their borough is doing in relation to others and identify areas for action.
Impact
Since the start of this project in 2020, major improvements have been seen across all of the five input indicators as boroughs and local residents and campaigners have been able to see clearly how they perform in relation to neighbouring boroughs. In many cases council bosses have taken bold action to reduce traffic and create streets which encourage active travel. All boroughs still need to do much more and some boroughs have not done enough.
The Healthy Streets Scorecard coalition has been instrumental in making Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and School Streets common parlance, have put the urgent need for more Controlled Parking Zones firmly on the map, and have won the respect of councillors across London from all parties. They have successfully demonstrated that five simple, affordable changes will deliver a whole range of vital benefits – eliminating road casualties; getting people active; dramatically reducing carbon emissions; cleaning London’s air and delivering a more tranquil, stress-free urban environment.