A health check for streets

delivering measures that are known reduce car use and enable active travel, namely: Low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), 20mph speed limits, controlled parking, bus priority, protected cycle lanes and School Streets.

Streets should be welcoming places for everyone to walk along, spend time on and where they can engage with other people. By enabling physical activity and social interaction, streets can keep us healthy. This is the belief that lies at the heart of Healthy Streets, an approach developed by Lucy Saunders, an urbanist, transport planner and public health specialist. She works with organisations across the world to implement the approach, which was pioneered in London.

In London her ideas have shaped the Healthy Streets Scorecard, an annual report that sets out data to show the health of each borough’s streets according to ten indicators. The scorecard is published by London Healthy Streets Coalition, a group of health, environment and transport campaigners, to rank how London boroughs which are recognising the links between public health and active travel are enabling people to switch from cars to using public transport, walking and cycling instead.

The Healthy Streets Scorecard Coalition are: Action Zero Vision; CPRE London; London Living Streets; London Cycling Campaign; Sustrans; Possible; RoadPeace; Future Transport London; and Wheels for Wellbeing. These organisations are particularly concerned that 38% of adults and 66% of children in London do not have the recommended amounts of physical activity and nearly 40% of all children in London are overweight or obese.

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. In older adults physical activity is associated with increased functional capacities. It is shocking that boroughs are failing to deliver the streets we need to avoid these devastating diseases.”

The coalition’s latest annual scorecard gave marks to boroughs

The top performing London boroughs in the Healthy Streets Scorecard for 2023 are the City of London, Islington, Hackney and Camden, with Southwark moving past Westminster to gain a Top 5 slot. The bottom of the table features Hillingdon, Bexley and Havering, which are deemed to have car-dominated environments that fail to enable residents to switch to public transport, walking and cycling.

Well known for its low traffic neighbourhoods and cycle routes, Waltham Forest leads the way in Outer London, scoring higher than some Inner London boroughs. The worst performing Inner London boroughs are Kensington & Chelsea and Lewisham.

New this year is the London controlled parking zones map. The coalition believes that controlling parking is one of the most important tools councils have to reduce car journeys, especially short trips, in favour of walking, cycling and public transport, and it is cost neutral to the council. The 2023 scorecard used the controlled parking zone (CPZ) map data to calculate the proportion of controlled zones in each London borough relative to the area which is potentially suitable, and gave a final weighted score to account for the size and amount of CPZs.

The coalition built a database and map of all London CPZs based on information provided by each borough. The coalition split its CPZ scoring into two parts. Half of the score is based on the percent of the borough’s roads that could realistically be in a CPZ that are in one. The other half of the score is based on the average ‘opportunity to park’ each resident has.

The coalition noticed some boroughs have really large zones –so large, some drivers will drive inside those zones to park near a station or the shops. In other boroughs, residents can park anywhere or in any zone. These approaches will now be marked down, with a score that is based on how much area the average resident can park in of all CPZs in the borough. The final score was an average of these two components. The coalition says it was disappointed to see very little movement on the CPZ metric. www.healthystreetsscorecard.london