Lambeth Council and Crown Lane Primary school have been working together to encourage walking to school. Both Lambeth Council’s manifesto and London’s transport strategy demonstrate a commitment towards innovative schemes and street environments that discourage unnecessary journeys by car and encourage a shift towards active travel.
Healthy Streets Index
Working with community engagement group Street Space in 2019, Year 5 children from Crown Lane Primary School audited routes to school using the TfL Healthy Streets index. Children successfully audited routes and began to design their own series of interventions to improve priority locations around the school.
Visible pollution and noise
Children were shocked at the level of pollution visible on the railings outside of the school and the noise pollution from Crown Lane road. To tackle this, the children focused on a cut-through that runs from the school to Lake View Road. As the route didn’t have a name, the children took the opportunity to create their own: ‘The Creative Way’.
Colourful and accessible
‘tree of life’ at Crown Lane’s new ‘walk to school’ route
Working with designs led by the children, Lambeth Council has installed a creative walking trail that runs down this alley with the aim of creating a safer, more colourful and accessible space which will encourage walking to school. Additionally, the school is running the Living Streets Walk Once a Week behaviour change programme to incentivise walking and reward children that travel actively.
Word from the Cabinet
Cllr Claire Holland, Deputy Leader (Environment and Clean Air) said: “The new walking route to Crown Lane Primary will lead the way to a safer and healthier journey to school for many kids. One of our priorities in Lambeth is making the walk to school safer and healthier, whether that’s through our school streets programme or by creating healthy and green walking routes to school.”
More information
A full report on the work done with the school’s pupils is available from Street Space’s information pages or contact Lambeth’s Capital Programmes team for a downloadable copy
