Building the evidence base for healthier streets

Contributing to the evidence base

The interventions included in this programme have been applied across the UK and in many other countries for decades. However, challenges such as funding shortages have led to little evaluation or a failure to share learnings. We have invested a large proportion of the project budget into developing a robust evaluation methodology, so we can be sure if interventions are having a positive impact or not, share these learnings with others, and provide an evaluation model that can be adopted by others.

By the end of the pilots we want to better understand how much the streets physically changed in relation to the Healthy Streets Indicators; how people are using the streets differently; and how the flow of motorised vehicles and cycles has changed inside and on the boundary of the intervention areas. To evaluate changes like this during a time when traffic levels will be fluctuating dramatically due to COVID-19 we needed to be able to disentangle what was happening due to the interventions vs wider changes so we will be comparing the changes in our three pilots to two control areas where no changes have been implemented.

Designing inclusive community feedback

It was important to us that we captured, understood and responded to in-depth feedback about how residents feel about these changes. So we are investing in additional community engagement to ensure we hear from local people who do not usually engage through traditional consultation platforms or through online consultations. We have commissioned the research organisation Clearview, who have recruited and trained local people to become paid Community Researchers and gather feedback from residents whose voices are not normally heard. The aim of this work is to accurately capture community feedback so that it can both improve the schemes and inform the longer-term consultation.

We expect to have initial results from our evaluation and community feedback in summer 2021. Residents can find out more and leave comments on Southwark Council’s engagement websites for the three pilot project areas: Brunswick Park, East Faraday and North Peckham.

One of several steps

We know that schemes like this are only part of the solution to creating healthier streets and cleaner air. With our local partners we can trial and evaluate ways to reduce traffic and create safer streets on local authority managed roads, but many communities live on London’s major roads, which are managed by TfL. If we want clean air for everybody, there needs to be a fresh look at how we use London’s road network, and a long-term strategic plan of how we can reduce air pollution on these main roads to improve public health.

In our wider air pollution programme we are trying to tackle this issue from different angles by funding work looking at reducing freight related air pollution, working with businesses to address air pollution from construction, and scaling up cargo bikes. But we can’t fix this alone. We need to see more commitments from mayoral candidates in the run up to local elections in May 2021 to ensure all communities have clean air. What better place to start than ensuring our main roads and streetscapes are fit for the future and the changing way that Londoners travel, and at the same time improve health and increase enjoyment of our city?

This project is part of our wider programmes to tackle air pollution and children’s health and food. Our work with Southwark Council is one of several important steps towards reducing the health gap that affects so many families in our communities.