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 sets out detailed results for the input indicators:
Huge efforts from some boroughs in 2020 saw Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) proliferate and Hackney now tops the LTN indicator with 55% of suitable roads covered. Waltham Forest is close behind with 47%. These figures include new, as well as historic, LTNs. Other high-scoring boroughs include Newham, Southwark and Islington. All made significant progress in creating streets that put people first, and showed that boroughs can have a huge impact, relatively inexpensively, where they are committed to delivering change.
The many boroughs which did not introduce LTNs can learn from the best. Boroughs with the lowest scores are Croydon, Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, Bromley and Sutton, but many other boroughs need to do much more too.
Feedback
This is the first time LTNs have been mapped and compared to the areas suitable for an LTN and we are keen to receive feedback* on the mapping. Our aim is to reflect all LTNs, new & historic, areas originally designed not to carry through-traffic, or ‘natural’ LTNs where neighbourhoods are sandwiched between a natural barrier such as a river and a main road, with little permeability.
(*Contact us by sending a message in the page footer).
Notes
The graph below shows Inner and Outer London boroughs differentiated by colour (light blue = Inner London, dark blue = Outer London). This graph helps show how boroughs are doing compared to other Inner or Outer boroughs.
The image below depicts the London Low Traffic Neighbourhoods by borough map [reproduced from Safe Cycling London map May 2021, produced by Safe Cycle London with support from the LCC] highlighting the borough boundaries (coloured orange) and LTNs (historic and new, coloured mauve).
Boroughs do not have targets for implementing 20mph speed limits, even though they are vital to improving road safety and making walking and cycling more attractive and are set to become more important as we move to speed limiters on all new models from 2022 onwards and all new motor vehicles from 2024. We advocate borough-wide 20mph speed limits. The overall trend is in a positive direction over the past year with four boroughs increasing their coverage of 20mph speed limits by a significant amount. There are, however, a large number of boroughs which have done little or nothing and have a long way to go to improve their score on this metric.
Four boroughs have fully implemented borough-wide 20mph speed limits in the past year – Merton, Richmond-upon-Thames, Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea. As a result, there are now 17 boroughs (up from 13 in 2020) where over 75% of roads have a 20mph speed limit, 13 over 90% and eight over 95%. For the first time in 2021, more than half of all borough-controlled roads across London have a 20mph limit and altogether (including TfL controlled roads too) 49.7% of all roads in London now have a 20mph limit.
At the other end of the scale, five boroughs have fewer than 10% of roads covered by 20mph limits – Barnet, Bromley, Hillingdon, Havering and Bexley – and two of these (Barnet and Bromley) have fewer than 5%. This lack of attention on reduced speed limits will make it very difficult for them to take advantage of the automatic compliance that is on offer with the introduction of Intelligent Speed Assistance from 2022 and will leave those walking and cycling in these boroughs in particular at a severe disadvantage to those in neighbouring boroughs in the longer term.
The graph below shows Inner and Outer London boroughs differentiated by colour (light blue = Inner London, dark blue = Outer London). This graph helps show how boroughs are doing compared to other Inner or Outer boroughs.
There are no targets for the percentage of a borough’s roads covered by a Controlled Parking Zone (CPZ). But controlled parking is essential to reducing commuter parking and ‘switchable’ car trips (often sort trips which could easily be made by walking, cycling or public transport). CPZs also have many other benefits and we advocate borough-wide controlled parking particularly around train stations, as well as other destinations like town centres and shopping streets.
In five boroughs, 100% of roads covered by CPZs. These are the City of London, Westminster, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea and Tower Hamlets (though in last three of these, residents can park anywhere in the borough and these all need to change to localised zones to make the CPZs effective in reducing car trips).
Four other boroughs also have high levels of controlled parking in the 80-90% bracket (Camden, Newham, Hackney and Hammersmith & Fulham), with a further five boroughs above 50% CPZ. Brent, Haringey and Waltham Forest are the Outer London boroughs with relatively high levels of controlled parking at 67%, 54% and 48% respectively.
But many boroughs still have extremely low levels of controlled parking. Two Inner London boroughs have exceptionally low rates, Greenwich with only 28% and Lewisham 21% of roads controlled. In Bromley and Sutton parking is controlled on less than 10% of roads and in 16 boroughs parking is controlled on less than a third of roads.
Note
Prior to 2021 the data provided by AppyWay were estimations of CPZ. Over the past year AppyWay have updated their data using a different, and more accurate, dataset and for this reason some scores are slightly lower compared to previous years. Due to the change in reporting it is not accurate to compare year-on-year datasets.
The graph below shows Inner and Outer London boroughs differentiated by colour (light blue = Inner London, dark blue = Outer London). This graph helps show how boroughs are doing compared to other Inner or Outer boroughs.
This measures the length of cycle lane physically separated from motor vehicle traffic and pedestrians. Evidence shows that more, and a wider range of, people cycle where there is a network of safe, protected routes – and London’s main cycle tracks are extremely successful at boosting cycling numbers where they are installed.
This year, we used the Safe Cycling in London map created by @SafeCycleLDN to identify not just new schemes delivered through Streetspace funding during the Covid crisis, and in the last few years, but also legacy cycle tracks, some dating back decades, across London.
The Scorecard measures the length of all protected track – on and adjacent to carriageway – per kilometre of road length in order to demonstrate the scale of coverage in each borough. The actual percentage of coverage of protected tracks on carriageways, however, will be much lower.*
(*The score is given as a km of protected cycle lane as a percentage of overall borough road length. However, it is important to note that the cycle tracks can be delivered both on borough-controlled roads and TfL-controlled “TLRN”/ Red Route roads. So while the percentages reflect the overall scale of cycle tracks each borough is delivering compared to how much roadspace there is in the borough, it doesn’t reflect a “true” percentage of road use and should not be quoted as such.)
The last year has seen significant shifts in cycle track km across London. Kensington & Chelsea, infamous for its views on cycling, even briefly put in several km of cycle track on Kensington High Street, before then ripping it out in a move that continues to be at threat of legal action. At the end of 2020 it sat as the borough with the lowest proportion of cycle track in London.
Elsewhere, boroughs like the City of London, Waltham Forest, Camden and Kingston Upon Thames used Streetspace funding to deliver significant lengths of new cycle track – most often built using semi-segregated “wands” as a temporary scheme, to be made permanent later (hopefully).
The graph below shows Inner and Outer London boroughs differentiated by colour (light blue = Inner London, dark blue = Outer London). This graph helps show how boroughs are doing compared to other Inner or Outer boroughs.
The image below depicts the Safe cycling in London map of the cycle network in London.
KEY
This indicator measures the amount of action in each borough on the Transport for London STARS programme and on the implementation of School Streets. These two measures are combined to create a score for the borough.
Due to the pandemic, schools in London are able to meet their STARS objectives over two years rather than one, meaning data for the last academic year is not available. The scores for each borough will therefore be the same as the previous year. With the STARS ratings for schools remaining the same, changes in this metric are all down to the introduction of new School Streets.
The graph below shows Inner and Outer London boroughs differentiated by colour (light blue = Inner London, dark blue = Outer London). This helps show how boroughs are doing compared to other Inner or Outer boroughs.
School Streets are streets leading to school gates which are closed to general traffic, at a minimum, on school days before opening and following school closing times. London-wide, 451 School Streets have been implemented (compared to 81 in the 2020 Scorecard) and 66 are planned, according to data gathered by Mums For Lungs and the Healthy Streets Scorecard. This is a growing fraction of the 3,100 schools in London as boroughs seek to implement School Streets as part of pandemic-response and healthy streets measures.
The three boroughs with the highest proportion of their schools on School Streets are Merton (41%), Islington (40%) and Hackney (39%). Hackney, with 43 School Streets in total, has the most of any London borough and indeed any local authority in the UK. At the other end of the scale, some boroughs, such as Sutton (which implemented School Streets at 24% of schools, then removed them all) and Bexley, still have no school streets at all.
Richmond and Hammersmith & Fulham and gone from having no School Streets to 20% and 17% respectively. The social, environmental, educational and health benefits of School Streets will all now be being spread across those boroughs. Many have initially been implemented as trial measures and need investment to improve enforcement and create permanent schemes.
The Healthy Streets Scorecard coalition urges councils to make trial School Streets permanent and roll traffic-free schemes out to every primary and secondary school in the capital where possible.
A number of boroughs put in School Streets but then removed them, so the graph below shows where this has happened by setting the School Streets 2020 data and interim data for November 2020 next to the current 2021 Scorecard data.
The graph below shows Inner and Outer London boroughs differentiated by colour (light blue = Inner London, dark blue = Outer London). This helps show how boroughs are doing compared to other Inner or Outer boroughs.