Newham approves sustainable local transport plan to improve road safety and reduce air pollution

The Council’s Cabinet this week approved a local transport plan to reduce air pollution in neighbourhoods and around schools, enable and encourage more trips by sustainable transport, and help improve road safety for children and families.

The Council’s 2022/2023 highways and sustainable transport delivery spending programme funded by Transport for London, will continue to implement projects that are improving the borough’s air quality and encouraging residents to make more sustainable journeys.

Cabinet Lead for Environment, Highways and Sustainable Transport, Councillor James Asser said:

“As COP26 world leaders debate the global climate change crisis, this local transport plan will continue to deliver environmental improvements for our residents.

“This includes reducing harmful rat-running and through traffic in residential areas and the pollution and safety risk this causes, rolling out further healthy school street schemes to address air quality at school entrances and encourage more sustainable school journeys, and investing further in enabling and encouraging our residents to make more sustainable travel choices for their local journeys.

“Our residents are at the heart of everything we do and we want to hear their concerns on local environment and transport issues. So this plan will also contain a schedule of resident-led participation to help address road safety, speeding and other local concerns.”

Programme highlights include:

• A further rollout of healthy school street schemes in 2022/23. Major improvements to air quality have been recorded near schools involved in phase 1 and 2 of the rollout. These schemes have been widely supported by pupils, parents, teachers and residents.
• Tackling rat-running with Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. This means prioritising local communities and stopping residential areas being used as cut-throughs for commuter and non-residential traffic; and better public spaces to encourage more social and community activities on the people-friendly streets created.
• The continued investment in enabling and encouraging sustainable travel, through improvements to walking and cycling routes like Mitchell Walk and the Greenway,
• Supporting cycle journeys through the continued rollout of on-street residential cycle hangars and cycle hire stations, and also continuing our free cycle training offer for residents of all ages and abilities https://www.cycleconfident.com/sponsors/newham/
• Other local measures identified by residents and Ward councillors to address specific transport matters, such as speeding traffic and road safety issues.

The local implementation plan for TfL contributes to the delivery of Council strategies, such as 50 Steps to a Healthier Newham and the Newham Air Quality Action Plan, as well as responding to the current climate emergency.