2022 Scorecard results overview

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The Healthy Streets Scorecard ranks London Boroughs on how healthy their streets are according to nine indicators.

2022 final scores & London-wide overview

All the indicator charts 2022

Your borough 2022 – results and commentary

New: Housing density weighted scores

New: Bus Priority data

Interim reports
Previous data updates on select indicators.

Healthy Streets Scorecard detailed indicator results

Input indicator results
1. Low Traffic Neighbourhoods
2. 20mph Speed Limits
3. Controlled Parking Zones
4. Physically Protected Cycle Track
5. School Provision
Bus Priority

Outcome indicator results
6. Sustainable Modeshare
7. Active Travel Rate
8. Road Collision Casualties
9. Car Ownership Rates

2022 final scores & London-wide overview

New data reveals huge disparities in action to improve health of Londoners

Concerns of worsening health inequities as gap widens between ‘best’ and ‘worst’ areas
Rapid rollout of ‘School Streets’ and substantial reduction in car ownership seen in parts of London

New data reveals a gulf between the boroughs shown to be the best and worst at delivering healthier and more sustainable mobility in London with the top scorers continuing to demonstrate that it’s possible to deliver Healthy Streets and transport decarbonisation amid a funding crisis, and in an election year.

Highest scoring London boroughs were the City, Islington, Hackney and Camden in Inner London. Waltham Forest again outperforms some Inner boroughs to become the top Outer borough and Richmond overtakes Merton to take second place there. Southwark is the top South London borough.

Lowest scoring boroughs Hillingdon, then Barking & Dagenham and Redbridge are the boroughs with the unhealthiest streets in London, so far reluctant to deliver bold schemes to tackle the health and climate crises.

The graph below shows the final factored scores for 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, differentiating Inner and Outer London boroughs by colour. This helps show how boroughs are doing in relation to one another.
Note that for comparison the 2020 – 2022 factored scores include the School Provision indicator, but the 2019 factored scores do not.

Scorecard (factored score) chart explained

In the chart above, each borough has been given a factored score. Factor scores are composite variables which provide information about a borough’s placement on a scale. Factor scores are given by F=XB, where X is the indicator normalised score for a borough and B is the factor score coefficient (or weight). Each indicator is weighted as 1, or 0.5 if there are two parts to one indicator, for example Modeshare has a weighting of 1, Active travel – walking has a weighting of 0.5 and Active travel – cycling has a weighting of 0.5. The borough’s total factored score is the sum of all indicator factored scores which is then factored to 10 (multiplied by the number of indicators/10) to give a value on the scale between zero and 10. We can then compare boroughs against each other on the scale.

Indicators summary

The London Boroughs Healthy Streets Scorecard sets out data showing the health of each borough’s streets according to a series of indicators. This year’s updated scores showed wide gaps on all indicators:

Metric	Best borough/s *excludes City of London	Worst borough/s *excludes City of London
% of streets with Low Traffic Neighbourhood	70% (Hackney*)	4% (Bexley)
% of schools with traffic-free School Streets	50% (Islington)	0% (Bexley and Hammersmith & Fulham)
School STARS (% of maximum possible points in promoting sustainable travel to school)	63% (Bromley)	11% (Barking & Dagenham*)
% of streets within a Controlled Parking Zone **need to implement small-area CPZs	100% (City of London, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea, Tower Hamlets, Westminster)	8% (Bromley)
20mph speed limits as % of borough managed roads	100% (19 boroughs have a 20mph default speed limit)	5% (Barnet)
Cars registered per 100 households	33 (Islington)	122 (Hillingdon)
% of polluting diesel cars (new indicator this year)	17% (Camden)	30% (Hillingdon)

NOTE: The City of London scores well in many indicators but it is not primarily a residential borough and it was felt that comparisons with the other London Boroughs may be unhelpful. So, while the City’s scores are set out in the data and graphs and reflected in the commentary for all Inner London, the commentary does not always reflect the results from the City for individual indicators.

Notable findings include:

New data on bus priority. Alongside this year’s Scorecard, the coalition published data on the proportion of total length of bus route in each borough which is “prioritised” for buses using either measures like bus lanes or Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (through which the buses can travel more reliably). We also published a map showing all London bus routes, all bus lanes and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. The data shows a wide variation in the proportion of bus route prioritised in each borough. Among inner London boroughs: in Hackney, Islington and Lambeth 40%-50% of routes are prioritised; in Haringey, Lewisham, Wandsworth and Camden around 30%; in Tower Hamlets, Westminster and Hammersmith & Fulham only around 20% of routes are prioritised; and in Kensington & Chelsea just 5% of routes are prioritised. Among the outer London boroughs, Ealing (18%), Barking and Dagenham (15%) and Merton (15%) have the highest scores; but Bexley, Bromley, Redbridge, Barnet and Sutton had the lowest scores (less than 5% of routes are prioritised) and just 1% of routes are prioritised in bottom-of the-table Bexley.

Some boroughs have scored higher (or lower) than we would expect given their population density. The more densely populated boroughs have an advantage in the Scorecard so this year the coalition also published data showing the scores adjusted for housing density. Waltham Forest, Camden and Richmond Upon Thames have achieved a higher score than predicted by their density. Tower Hamlets, Barking & Dagenham and Hillingdon all performed worse.

Car ownership. The biggest falls were mainly seen in boroughs which have worked hardest to encourage a switch to walking, cycling and public transport: these included the three boroughs which came overall top of the Healthy Streets Scorecard this year – Islington, Hackney and Camden, along with the top-scoring South London borough Southwark and the top-scoring Outer London borough Waltham Forest. The total number of cars registered in London fell by 1.5% (38,923 fewer cars) compared to 0.5% in 2021 and 0.0% in 2020[i] with particularly big falls in Newham at 4.0% (2,860 fewer cars), then Southwark 3.7% (2,145 cars), Camden 3.2% (1,331) and Waltham Forest 2.9% (2,260). There are still 2.6 million cars in London taking up 30 million square metres of space – more than 4,200 full size football pitches.[ii]

Strongest action this year by all boroughs was on ‘School Streets’, with most boroughs delivering schemes that reduce traffic outside schools at pick-up and drop-off time. School Streets now cover 18.5% of schools, up from 2% two years ago.

Polluting cars: data shows that inner London boroughs which charge extra for diesel car parking permits are successfully reducing diesel car ownership compared to those that don’t. For the first time, the Healthy Streets Scorecard now also includes data on the proportion of polluting cars owned in each borough. Data shows differences between Inner London boroughs, for instance Camden (17% diesel cars), which operates a diesel surcharge on resident parking permits, and Wandsworth (22% diesel cars), which has no emissions-based parking tariffs.

Road danger not reducing fast enough. There were 3,581 fatal and serious reported road casualties in 2021 compared to 3,070 in 2020 and an average of 3,950 in the 3 years prior to 2020. In 2021 casualties amongst cyclists and those using “other vehicles” were above pre-pandemic average levels (with the ‘other vehicle’ category now seeing the impact of casualties among e-scooter riders). Much stronger action is needed to eliminate road casualties entirely.

[i] The total number of cars registered in London has dropped each of the past three years but this year’s drop is significantly bigger (1.47%) than previous years (2020 data showed a drop of 0.01%, and 2021 0.49%). As of December 2021 there were 2,609,165 cars registered in London.

[ii] Percentage decrease in number of cars registered in each London borough between Dec20 and Dec21

Indicator index (normalised score) chart explained

In the chart above, each of the nine indicator scores have been normalised to adjust the values measured on different scales to a common scale. The borough with the lowest score in the data range is given the value 0, and the borough with the highest score in the data range is given the value 1. Note that a borough that has a normalised value of 1 has not achieved 100% of the indicator target, rather a value of 1 means that the borough has the highest score when compared to all 32 boroughs. (View the actual input and outcome indicator data). We can then compare boroughs and where they sit on a scale of zero to one.

For detailed information on how the overall scores are calculated, visit Final scores methodology

Housing density weighting

Many well-connected inner London boroughs have natural advantages over outer London boroughs in the Scorecard, some of which have developed over decades, others are structural. We recognise that tends to skew the Scorecard metrics we use towards inner London. To adjust for that we’ve looked at several potential ways of addressing that, including re-weighting scores by ‘access to public transport’ (PTAL), household income or ‘residential density’. After careful consideration, we are looking closely at density, referred to in our Scorecard as ‘housing density’ to adjust scores, as this is highly correlated to both the 2021 HSS Factored Score and to PTAL. The aim of the weighting is to show the effect housing density has on the scores of each borough.

The higher the housing density, in other words, the more people live per square kilometre for a borough, the lower car ownership tends to be, the more public transport connections there are, the more people walk and cycle and use public transport etc. Looking at the overall scores, including both input and outcomes, we can see how boroughs perform on the Scorecard versus what they would be predicted to score based on their density alone. Some boroughs have a density that should lead us to believe they would score highly, yet exceed that score through continued action, others underscore their predicted score as they’ve underinvested for long periods of time in Healthy Streets, active travel, public transport and car use reduction.

For Overall Scores those most exceeding their predicted overall scores are Waltham Forest, Camden, Richmond and Haringey. And those boroughs undercutting their predicted overall score the most are Tower Hamlets, Barking & Dagenham and Hillingdon.

Two of the top four boroughs performing better than their predicted overall scores based on housing density are from Outer London boroughs, another seven Outer London boroughs also perform better than expected (Merton, Hounslow, Ealing, Greenwich, Brent, Kingston and Croydon). Three inner London boroughs perform below expectation for overall Scores when housing density is accounted for; Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster and Tower Hamlets, with Tower Hamlets the poorest performer of all London boroughs.

Looking specifically at input predicted score based on density, versus actual performance, it is interesting to note that Waltham Forest, City of London and Haringey are joined by Merton as all delivering more Healthy Streets than expected. It’s also interesting to see Westminster significantly under-delivering predicted inputs than expected – and joining ‘usual suspects’ Tower Hamlets, Bexley, Hillingdon and Redbridge.

On outcomes, Camden, Lambeth and Wandsworth most outperform predicted scores based on density for metrics such as mode share, serious collisions and car ownership rates, while the usual suspects including Westminster once again dominate the list of those underperforming.