At their meeting on Wednesday 16th June Enfield's Cabinet will be invited to endorse a newly drafted Healthy Streets Framework, intended for use in developing and delivering Healthy Streets projects designed to enable more walking and cycling and reduce road danger.
The term "Healthy Streets" is taken from policy documents published by the Mayor of London which incorporate targets for a gradual switch away from use of private cars in the capital towards "active travel modes" - walking, cycling and public transport. The Mayor's Transport Strategy is intended to improve physical and mental health by encouraging more physical activity and providing liveable streets, reduce deaths and serious injuries on the roads and cut carbon emissions which contribute towards the climate change crisis.
The Healthy Streets approach
Healthy Streets is described as a "human-centred framework for embedding public health in transport, public realm and planning".
Transport for London's Healthy Streets approach seeks to help Londoners change their travel behaviour by using cars less and walk, cycle and use public transport more. The approach is distilled in the ten indicators shown in the diagram above.
Enfield's new Healthy Streets Framework states that since the adoption of the Mayor of London’s Transport Strategy in 2018, the delivery of walking and cycling projects in the borough has been guided by this approach, tailored to meet unique local challenges..
In particular, the Cabinet is invited to endorse six key activities:
- creating a high-quality walking and cycling network
- making streets safer, reducing road danger and the number of people killed or seriously injured on Enfield’s roads
- improving accessibility and inclusivity of active travel in Enfield.
- enabling community participation in the development of Healthy Streets projects
- creating high quality public realm and places
- informing and inspiring people around the issues associated with sustainable travel.
The Framework sets out the vision for Enfield Healthy Streets, the activities that will achieve the vision, identifies key funding sources, sets out the processes for identifying and prioritising new projects, monitoring and evaluating projects and sets out governance arrangements.
There are two annexes to the Framework.
The first provides data about current travel modes in Enfield.
The second sets out the approach that will be taken to equalities issues when designing, delivering and assessing healthy streets projects. It was developed in conjunction with Transport for All, a national not-for-profit organisation that aims to inform, educate and challenge transport planners and providers about the needs of disabled people and older people. It contains analysis of information about protected characteristic groups in the borough and how people from these groups could be affected by the implementation of the programme. The contextual data will be reviewed annually to take account of new data where available. At the same time, the impact assessments and mitigating actions will be reviewed and adjusted as necessary.