2020 Scorecard results overview

The Healthy Streets Scorecard ranks London Boroughs on how healthy their streets are according to nine indicators (four ‘outcome’ and five ‘input’ indicators). By combining the indicator scores, each borough is given a final Healthy Streets score.

This page gives a London-wide overview of the 2020 Scorecard results and shows the final Healthy Streets scores for both 2019 and 2020. On other pages you can find your borough’s results and review detailed results for the four outcome indicators or the five input indicators.

The results of our second scorecard, for the first time showing year on year progress, display only marginal shifts in even the highest scoring boroughs.

Healthy Streets Scorecard indicators

Outcome indicator results
1. Sustainable Modeshare
2. Active Travel Rate
3. Road Collision Casualties
4. Car Ownership Rates

Input indicator results
5. Low Traffic Neighbourhoods
6. 20mph Speed Limits
7. Controlled Parking Zones
8. Physically Protected Cycle Track
9. School Provision

Covid-19 emergency response

The 2020 Scorecard data reflects the health of boroughs’ streets in the year before boroughs started to put in place emergency measures in response to the Covid-19 crisis so it does not reflect the incredibly hard work which has gone in during 2020 to enable more walking and cycling. We will need to wait for the results of the 2021 Scorecard to reflect on the outcomes of all this work. See our blog posts Covid-19 and Healthy Streets and Lockdown street changes for more.

For the time being, according to this year’s results, not only is London failing to enable enough people to shift away from car ownership and use, compared to the Mayor’s own Transport Strategy targets, but the pace of change is far too slow to tackle the coming climate crisis, to enable a “green recovery” from the Covid-19 pandemic, to tackle inactivity levels that are crippling NHS budgets and to achieve the Mayor’s “Vision Zero” on road danger.

2020 Scorecard: London-wide results

In terms of the key London-wide outcomes campaigners are tracking, the changes from 2019 to 2020 Scorecard data (reflecting changes during the year up to March 2020, and before boroughs started to put in place emergency measures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic), show:

Only 1% increase in share of journeys made by ‘sustainable mode of transport’ i.e. public transport, walking and cycling.
No discernible overall change in the number of people walking or cycling regularly
Only 268 fewer cars in London compared to the target of 250,000 fewer by 2041 (or 12,500 each year for 20 years).
An increase in serious and fatal pedestrian and cyclist road collision casualties. (This is mainly due to changes to the way severity of injury is recorded: nonetheless, the Mayor’s target is zero casualties.)

Some boroughs score higher than others, but all must do much more

The results also highlight huge disparities on borough action and outcomes even comparing only inner (or outer) London boroughs to each other.

In Inner London, Camden is the new chart-topper followed closely by Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Islington (who all score equally) in the overall results for 2020. These boroughs have done well to introduce 20mph speed limits and Controlled Parking Zones and to a lesser extent Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, Cycle Track and traffic-free streets around schools. They still have much more to do, though. Lewisham scores lowest of the Inner London boroughs with Kensington & Chelsea and Wandsworth not far ahead.*
In Outer London, accolades go to Haringey which scores highest, with Waltham Forest close behind. Havering, Hillingdon, Redbridge and Bexley are the bottom of the table with little sign of improvement.

*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.

It should be stressed that each borough has strengths and weaknesses, that the journey to healthy streets has just begun and that ALL boroughs need to do much more.

For the Inner London leaders, more low traffic neighbourhood schemes, cycle tracks on main roads and School Streets are needed. We hope the scorecard helps boroughs to compare how well they are doing in relation to other boroughs and to identify areas for future action.

We very much hope that when the Streetspace schemes, in response to the Covid-19 crisis, are factored in next year, the results will be very different. And we will need progress at a similar rate going forward every year – to ensure progress is not a brief blip with a return to business as usual in the years after.

The graph below shows the final factored scores for 2019 and 2020, 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 factored scores do not include the Schools provision indicator, so the 2020 scores are slightly different.

Find your borough’s results homepage:

Review detailed results for the four outcome indicators:

Review detailed results for the five input indicators:

Results overview

There has been some positive change on key input indicators, but all boroughs can do much more and many are lagging far behind

Some boroughs have improved their scores on 20mph speed limits and on Controlled Parking Zones, but many have done little or nothing since last year even on these. We expect to see many emergency cycle tracks and low traffic neighbourhoods put in place as we emerge from the 2020 coronavirus lockdown. We have not been able to reflect the emergency changes being made because they are happening as we write but the indications are that the majority of boroughs would still score low on these two indicators even if we had been able to factor in the emergency changes.

The overall score for boroughs is made up of scores for four ‘outcome’ indicators and five ‘input’ indicators. The range of results remains very wide for all indicators even when looking just at Inner or Outer London boroughs

On the four outcome indicators

The proportion of trips made by ‘sustainable mode’ (i.e. public transport, walking or cycling) is just 41% in Hillingdon but 88% in the highest scoring borough Hackney.
The proportion of adults walking more than five times a week varies between 29% in Barking & Dagenham and 53% in the City of London; and the proportion of adults cycling more than five times a week varies between just 1% in Sutton and 14% in Hackney.
The highest rate of serious or fatal casualties is in Hackney with 13 per 100,000 journey stages, more than double the lowest rate in both Croydon and Greenwich with 5 per 100,000 journey stages.
There remains a dramatic difference in reliance on cars with 127 cars registered for every 100 households in Hillingdon compared to just 35 in Islington. 70% of households have no car in Islington, Westminster, Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Camden but just 23% of households in Bromley, Havering and Sutton operate without a car.

In terms of the five input measures that boroughs can implement to deliver healthier streets:

20mph speed limits are widespread in some boroughs with over 95% of streets covered in Southwark, Hackney and Islington but fewer than 5% in Bromley and Barnet.
Low traffic neighbourhoods. Most boroughs have done almost nothing in the way of installing modal filters to block through-traffic from residential areas. Hackney has the most, over one hundred in total, but local campaigners say this is still only roughly half of what is needed.
Six boroughs now have 100% controlled parking but just 9% of roads in Bromley and Sutton have controlled parking and one inner London borough, Lewisham, has a very low rate at just 24%.
There are also wide differences in the amount of existing protected cycle track: Westminster, Tower Hamlets and Enfield have the most; Croydon, Brent and Kensington & Chelsea the least.
Islington has installed traffic-free School Streets at 16% of its schools but 13 boroughs have yet to install any. In terms of STARS points, which reflect action on sustainable travel to school, Bromley has 60% of the maximum possible but Barking and Dagenham has only 9%.

Casualty rates per 100,000 journey stages

Unfortunately, the results show that, where active travel rates (walking and cycling) are higher, casualty rates are sometimes higher too, even taking account of the overall number of journey stages by these modes. Hackney is a clear leader on active travel rates, for example, but it also has high rates of serious or fatal collisions for active travellers per 100,000 journey stages. This will be something for boroughs and the Mayor to reflect on as they aim to deliver the Mayor’s vision of zero fatalities or serious injuries by 2041 – that simply boosting walking and cycling rates does not result in “safety in numbers”. Indeed, the more walking and cycling there is, the more there will be a clear need to deliver more and better safety measures too.

Download the London Boroughs Healthy Streets Scorecard (2020) indicator charts

Download the London Boroughs Healthy Streets Scorecard (2020) indicators data