Haringey Streets for People: Ambitious Walking and Cycling Action Plan adopted

Residents are set to benefit from a detailed and ambitious 10-year blueprint that will help Haringey become a green walking and cycling borough. 

Last night (8 March 2022) the Cabinet adopted the Walking and Cycling Action Plan after residents overwhelmingly backed measures in the strategic roadmap to encourage active travel and create safe, pollution-free, people-focused neighbourhoods. 

The document sets out a comprehensive, long-term strategy to make walking and cycling natural choices, successfully tackling obesity, improving air quality and radically cutting carbon emissions from motor traffic.

Residents responded in their numbers to a nine-week consultation with safety concerns cited as the key obstacle to more active travel.  Respondents also wanted more ‘cyclable’ and ‘walkable’ spaces in the borough.

Cllr Mike Hakata, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Environment, Transport and the Climate Emergency said: “We want to reclaim our streets for the people living there, and this ambitious plan is a key tool to achieving this aspiration.

“The delivery of the measures within it will enable far greater levels of walking and cycling in Haringey, improving the health and well-being of residents and helping tackle climate change by reducing the reliance on the private motor car.

“In doing so, the plan will be a key driver towards a safer, cleaner, greener, fairer and happier borough.”

The plan describes how the council will tackle the sense of vulnerability and the fear of collisions by creating a network of inclusive strategic cycling routes which link up with low traffic neighbourhoods.

Inviting walking routes between shops, schools, leisure destinations and green spaces will also be created, with plans to boost the number of low traffic neighbourhoods and school streets - safe walking and cycling zones outside schools - core elements of the strategy.

The plan is part of the Haringey Streets for People initiative and will play a key role in achieving a green recovery from the pandemic and creating a zero-carbon borough by 2041.

Read more: Cabinet report - 8 March 2022 (PDF, 507KB)