Skip to content

2019 Scorecard Media Release

Postcode lottery for walking and cycling and healthy streets, claim campaigners producing first ever “London Boroughs Healthy Streets Scorecard”

New scorecard shows wide variation between London boroughs’ progress towards the Mayor’s key transport targets

A coalition of transport campaigners 1 in London (London Living Streets, London Cycling Campaign, CPRE London, RoadPeace, Sustrans and Campaign for Better Transport London) has today Monday 15 July 2019 published a scorecard 2 showing wide variation in boroughs’ progress towards the Mayor’s Transport Strategy ‘healthy streets’ targets.

While some boroughs such as Tower Hamlets and Camden in Inner London and Waltham Forest in Outer London, are rapidly progressing schemes to cut car use and road danger, and boost air quality and walking and cycling rates, others such as Kensington & Chelsea and Havering have yet to take key measures that start to put people, not cars, first. 3

In 2018 the Mayor of London published a bold new “Transport Strategy” committing London to a future where car use is far lower, people walk and cycle more, residents are more active, air quality is far better and road danger far lower.

London’s boroughs control 95% of London’s roads so what they do really matters. But while some are now taking action, others are doing far too little.

As a result, the scorecard reveals that while 93% of journeys made in some boroughs by their residents are done by walking, cycling and using public transport, that can be as low as 41% in others, with the bulk of the remainder of journeys made by car. Similarly, in some boroughs over half of residents walk or cycle more than five times a week to keep active, but in others only just over a quarter manage it.

The scorecard also tracks some key changes to streets that boroughs can make easily and affordably, and in a short space of time which will make a big difference. While one borough has installed 84 “modal filters” (barriers to cut out rat-running, or through motor traffic) in just a few years, another has only ever installed two. And 20mph coverage of borough roads varies from nearly 100% to just 10%. Similarly, there are boroughs where every street is part of a “controlled parking zone”, but other boroughs where less than 10% of streets are covered.

The organisations in the London Boroughs Healthy Streets Scorecard Coalition hope that the research will help the boroughs identify areas for improvement and look forward to supporting them to make the necessary changes.

  1. Campaigners in the Healthy Streets coalition are CPRE London, Living Streets London, London Cycling Campaign, RoadPeace, Sustrans and Campaign for Better Transport London
    (CONTACTS ON REQUEST):
    • CPRE London – Alice Roberts
    • London Living Streets – Jeremy Leach / Emma Griffin
    • London Cycling Campaign – Simon Munk
    • Sustrans – Cliff Matsuya
    • Roadpeace – Victoria Lebrec
    • Campaign for Better Transport London – Chris Barker↩
  2. The London Boroughs Healthy Streets Scorecard report (which contains charts for each indicator), along with a spreadsheet with full data sets, is available at

    https://lcc.org.uk/articles/healthy-boroughs

    OR

    http://www.cprelondon.org.uk/resources/item/2454-healthystreetsscorecard

    AND will be made available on the websites of all the organisations in the coalition listed above in due course.↩

  3. The chart above shows the London Boroughs Healthy Streets Scorecard – OVERALL SCORES FOR 2019 (YELLOW = Outer London borough, BLUE = Inner London borough). The overall scores were derived by combining scores from the eight individual indicators. See Annex 2 (see p21) for charts, data sources and methodology for individual indicators and overall Healthy Streets Scorecard.

    If we exclude the City of London, the boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Camden and Hackney scored highest and the lowest scoring borough was Havering closely followed by Redbridge, Bexley, Bromley and Hillingdon.

    Results for 4 output indicators: The London Mayor has targets to reduce car trips, increase walking and cycling and reduce traffic collisions but London’s boroughs control 95% of London’s roads so what they do really matters. On individual indicators:
    1. The proportion of trips made by either public transport, walking or cycling ranges from 41% in Hillingdon to 85% in Hackney. (The Mayor’s target is 75% in Outer London and 90% in Inner London by 2041.)
    2. The proportion of people walking or cycling more than five times a week varies between 27% in Barking and Dagenham and 56% in Hackney. (The Mayor’s aim is, by 2041, for all Londoners to do at least the 20 minutes of active travel they need to stay healthy each day.)
    3. The highest number of serious injuries for active travellers per million journey stages was in Hackney and was roughly three times the lowest rate in Greenwich. (In 2018, TfL launched its Vision Zero Action Plan to meet a target that, by 2041, no one would be killed or seriously injured on London’s roads.)
    4. There is a dramatic difference in reliance on cars with three and a half times more cars registered per household in Hillingdon (1.27) than in Islington (0.35). Though there is no Mayoral target for car ownership, this score reflects the extent to which people are reliant on cars.

    Results for 4 input indicators The scorecard also tracks whether boroughs are making changes to their streets. It tracks four measures which can be implemented easily and affordably, in one or two years and which evidence shows can lead to big shifts towards the targets.
    5. ‘Low Traffic Neighbourhood’ schemes are where through-traffic is blocked from residential streets using modal filters. The most are in Hackney (84) and the fewest in Kensington & Chelsea (2).
    6. 20mph speed limits are widespread in some boroughs with nearly 100% of streets covered in Southwark, Hackney and Islington but only 10% of streets covered in many other boroughs including Bromley, Barnet and Kensington & Chelsea.
    7. The proportion of streets with controlled parking varies between 100% in Camden and Kensington & Chelsea to below 10% in Bromley, Enfield and Sutton.
    8. There are also wide differences in the amount of protected cycle track: Westminster, Tower Hamlets and Enfield have the longest lengths installed; Croydon, Brent and Kensington & Chelsea the shortest.↩

More articles