Healthy Streets Scorecard
Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter October 2026
The eighth Healthy Streets Scorecard, sponsored by eight sustainable transport groups, including FTL, was launched on 7th July. The project scores the 32 London boroughs plus the City of London on various criteria measuring their commitment to sustainability. The criteria are divided between input indicators – the action boroughs take – and output indicators – measuring how successful they are at carrying out the measures. For the first time the roads managed by TfL – the red routes - were included.
The input indicators measure the extent of 20mph and controlled parking zones, low traffic neighbourhoods, cycle lanes, school streets and bus priority. The output indicators are sustainable mode share, active travel, serious road injuries and deaths
and car ownership and polluting vehicles.
Overall Islington emerged as the healthiest borough whilst Waltham Forest and Enfield saw the biggest improvement in their score with Barnet and Croydon seeing the biggest decrease.
In general, inner London borough score more highly than outer London boroughs. Highlights include more than 99 per cent of inner London roads having a 20mph limit, and even TfL roads, which are the trunk roads, now have a 43 per cent coverage. The extent of low traffic neighbourhoods varies from 72.2 per cent of roads in Hackney to 5.8 per cent in Bexley. Controlled parking zones extent varies from over 90 per cent of roads in Newham, Islington, Hackney, Camden, Westminster and Hammersmith to under 5 per cent in Havering and Bromley.
30 per cent of London schools are now protected by controlled access during school opening and closing hours (so called School Streets) but Bexley and Hillingdon have few or no school streets.
Over 60 per cent of bus routes in the City and over 50 per cent in Hackney have controlled bus lanes but twelve outer London boroughs (plus Kensington) have under 5 per cent.
Cycle rates have generally been increasing, no doubt partly due to the availability of hire bikes. The proportion of people cycling at least once a week is 28.3 per cent in Hackney whilst only 3.2 per cent in Havering.
Road casualty rates remain unacceptably high. There are 5.8 serious or fatal casualties per 100,000 daily walking stages and 1.9 serious or fatal casualties per 1000 daily cycling stages.
There is a slight fall in the number of private cars in London. Over 70 per cent of households in Westminster, the City, Kensington, Islington, Camden and Hackney have no car. In contrast, in Havering, Hillingdon and Bromley only a little over 20 per cent of households have no car.
The Scorecard provides a useful overview of the extent of sustainability on London’s roads. It provides an indication to boroughs as to how they compare with others, and how far they are fulfilling the Mayor’s aim for 80% of all trips in London to be made on foot, by cycle or using public transport by 2041.
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