Merton
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2022 Healthy Streets Scorecard results
Merton scores well for an outer London borough and its stand-out result is it continues to be the Outer London borough with the highest proportion of schools with a School Street (42%, all of which have been made permanent). It is, however, worth noting that the Council is now reducing the hours of operation of School Streets which is a retrograde step. Many School Streets are quite small in area and don’t deliver safe routes to school.
Merton has a 20mph speed limit on nearly all its streets and scores well on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) with 34% of suitable streets in an LTN (a good score though lower than leaders Hackney 70% and Waltham Forest 50%). While it must be congratulated for introducing some new LTNs, most are historic, and more progress could have been made in the last year. Indeed, more LTNs were proposed, consulted on and didn’t go ahead. The council needs to up its game in this regard because significant resources went into the process, with no value delivered.
Merton needs to do more to provide safe cycle and pedestrian infrastructure (there are many busy roads that lack safe places to cross) and to expand controlled parking to better reflect the negative impacts of free and unrestricted car parking. The wand-separated lane on Merton High Street, introduced during Covid times, is compromised in significant respects. There are two schemes – Bishopsford Road [delivered] and Plough Lane [in design] – that include protected cycle lanes, so we are hopeful that good measures such as these will become the standard. Additionally, segregated cycle lanes have been reintroduced on re-built Mitcham Bridge (with credit for this result due to months of pressure from a range of local groups).
One third of households in Merton don’t have a car and 61% of trips are made by public transport, walking or cycling – so the basis is there for change.
We would like for Merton to continue to lead the way by introducing more School Streets in the coming year, including at schools with higher traffic flow. We would also like to see the introduction of new LTNs that assist in creating a safe walking, cycling and wheeling environment for school children’s trips to and from school.
"Merton Council needs to increase its ambition around active travel & healthy streets - addressing climate change and improving people's health and wellbeing - as very little progress has been made in the past year. There was cross party commitment to this before the election. We look forward to seeing the council's plans for a more strategic walking and cycling network, including increasing the borough's protected cycle lane provision, creating more low traffic neighbourhoods, tackling HGV movements and improving dangerous junctions."
The Healthy Streets Scorecard combine scores for nine indicators to create an overall Healthy Streets score for each borough. See the graph below for 2022 results (includes 2019 – 2021 results for comparison). For more detail visit the London-wide overview of the 2022 results. You can also:
- View summary 2022 results for the nine indicators.
- Review more detailed results for outcome indicators and input indicators; and read our explainer about why we have chosen these nine indicators.
- View results for other boroughs.
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.
London Low Traffic Neighbourhoods map
See your borough’s LTNs – and all LTNs in London in the London LTN map
For results analysis visit Low Traffic Neighbourhoods indicator results
Instructions for map (below)
To navigate the key, click the top left hand corner.
To open in a new window, click the top right hand corner.
Zoom in and out using the + and – buttons.