This blog is primarily taken from Healthy Streets Scorecard media release.
In the Healthy Streets Scorecard for 2023 are City, Islington, Hackney and Camden, with Southwark moving past Westminster to gain a Top 5 slot. Well known for its LTNs and cycle routes, award winning Waltham Forest leads the way in Outer London, scoring higher than some Inner London Boroughs.
Worst in 2023 are Hillingdon, Bexley and Havering with car-dominated environments failing to enable residents to switch to public transport, walking and cycling. The worst performing Inner London boroughs are Kensington & Chelsea and Lewisham.
“Some London boroughs, despite declaring a climate emergency, continue to send a message to residents that the car is king, and the only mode switch needed is perhaps from a diesel SUV to an electric one years away. But the evidence and the science says starkly otherwise.” comments Simon Munk, Head of Campaigns.
“We need every borough – particularly those lagging behind such as Kensington & Chelsea, Bromley and Hillingdon – to get moving on switching away from cars whenever possible, on actively enabling active and sustainable travel modes. No more excuses – the clock is ticking.”
This year, the coalition has given awards to five boroughs:
Some boroughs have scored higher (or lower) than we would expect given their housing density.
The more densely populated boroughs have an advantage in the Scorecard, so we now also publish data showing the actual scores boroughs achieve compared to the score they are predicted to achieve based on their housing density.
The Healthy Streets Scorecard coalition continues to upgrade and develop new measures to improve the accuracy of its data and develop and introduce new scores every year. As a result, the Scorecard is now arguably the most advanced tool for measuring council progress on measures to reduce car use and enable alternatives to help London cut emissions and be healthier.
This year, the coalition has mapped Controlled Parking Zones in a move to improve data on that metric; and developed a new scoring system based partially on ‘opportunity to park’ with entire borough, or large zones, allowing residents to park anywhere, scored lower than smaller zones based on a few streets.
The coalition also mapped the entire bus network to establish which boroughs have the most bus lanes or other ‘bus priority’ measures, providing faster journeys, and integrated this into the final borough scores this year.
Scores were once again adjusted for density to account for natural ‘bias’ where higher density areas score higher. This shows some councils you’d expect to score poorly score well, while some you’d expect to score very well (Kensington & Chelsea) score worse than expected.
* Excluding the City of London
Full results and year on year analysis is available at the Healthy Streets Scorecard site.
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