Lambeth Council has created 45 school streets for 50 schools to protect pupils, staff and parents from road danger around the school gates as pupils are dropped off and picked up.
Around 28 per cent of weekday morning peak car trips in Lambeth are for children travelling to school, which contributes to congestion and road danger. Every primary school in Lambeth that can host a School Street now has one, which is almost 90 per cent of the total. In May this year a further 17 of them were made permanent.
London now has the most School Streets in Europe according to a new report from Clean Cities, beating Paris and Milan to the top spot. Around 10 per cent of all Schools Streets in London have been set up in Lambeth even though the borough hosts only three per cent of London’s population.
Cllr Rezina Chowdhury, Lambeth’s Deputy Leader, said: “We’re really proud of how much we have reduced road danger around schools and I’m delighted to see school communities flourish because of the fun public spaces that have been created.
“To get to this position we have worked really closely with schools, local residents and made changes based on feedback to make sure we get this right, because it is so important for Lambeth.”
The ranking is based on official data collected by the international non-profit Clean Cities Campaign. The group benchmarked cities on three indicators that closely reflect United Nations and other expert advice for making cities and mobility more friendly to children, who are especially vulnerable.
Oliver Lord, UK Head of Clean Cities Campaign, said: “We’ve spent decades building cities around dangerous and polluting cars, which has eroded the health and independence of young people. London is the best city in Europe at delivering safer school streets and this is especially thanks to leading councils such as Lambeth.”
To read the Clean Cities report visit cleancitiescampaign.org/.
Learn more about Lambeth School Streets.
