Green and Healthy Streets Fund
The Green and Healthy Streets Fund supports exemplary projects that redesign streets to integrate green infrastructure and climate resilience measures, alongside interventions that support active travel, reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality.
About the Green and Healthy Streets Fund
The Green and Healthy Streets Fund is being delivered in close partnership with Transport for London (TfL) and is part of the Green New Deal Mission.
Funded projects will embed green infrastructure and climate resilience measures (such as street trees, pocket parks, sustainable drainage and de-paving) into interventions that encourage walking and cycling. This may include school streets, low traffic neighbourhoods and alongside cycleways. Some projects will repurpose road and parking space to reduce traffic and provide new rain gardens and green spaces. All projects aim to make our streets more attractive places to walk and cycle (promoting healthier behaviours), while also increasing resilience to climate hazards like flooding and heat risk.
The programme prioritises projects in areas of highest climate vulnerability (as determined by the GLA's Climate Risk Mapping) and with the greatest potential to increase walking trips (as determined by TfL data and modelling).
In July 2022, the Mayor awarded £2.85m of funding to 19 Green and Healthy Streets projects that will be delivered by 11 London boroughs on borough roads and the wider public realm. Read more about these projects below. The remaining funding is granted to TfL to support innovative and exemplary projects on the TfL Road Network (£1m) and for improvements to walking routes that connect green spaces (£0.15m).
Borough-led Projects (listed by borough)
The following boroughs will receive funding from the Green and Healthy Streets Fund to deliver projects on borough roads and the wider public realm (overall amount of £2.85m). Learn more about the projects by clicking on the names of the boroughs.
Greening Brent’s School Streets (Crownhill Road (John Keble CofE Primary, Maple Walk, and St Claudine's Catholic School for Girls), Oakington Manory Primary, Our Lady of Grace Infants) – these projects seek to green school streets within healthy neighbourhoods with interventions including rain gardens, pocket parks, green screens, and tree planting. Some interventions are located at school entrances and outside spaces, providing the opportunity for schoolchildren will be engaged in the delivery of these projects.
Camden Square Area Low Traffic Neighbourhood & C50 Cycle Route (3 projects: Agar Grove/St Augustine’s Rd/Murray Street, Cliff Villas, Rousden Street) – these projects will see rain gardens and tree pits embedded into LTN areas and alongside active travel infrastructure. In addition to sustainable drainage measures, 17 street trees will be planted across the three projects.
Greening Bowes Primary Area Quieter Neighbourhood - this project introduces new green spaces, sustainable drainage measures, and street greening in the Bowes Quieter Neighbourhood. The scheme aims to improve the safety and quality of school streets in the area, while also encouraging walking and cycling by improving active travel infrastructure and connections.
Wayland Avenue Low Traffic Neighbourhood – this project will replace existing parallel parking bays in two locations in the Wayland Avenue LTN with large, linear rain gardens and sustainable drainage areas. Further measures are incorporated to efficiently guide rainwater towards the rain gardens for capture, and to improve the attractiveness of the space with benches and street art.
North Hyde Road, Hayes, Air Quality Focus Area – this project targets areas of high surface water risk in the North Hyde Road Air Quality Focus Area with 29 new rain gardens of various sizes and an additional 27 new street trees. Air Quality Focus Areas are identified by the GLA as hotspots for human exposure to air pollution requiring specific attention and support.
Greening Calley Connections – this project aims to make entrances to Bingfield Park more accessible and greener, using measures that reduce flood and heat risk; create green corridors between existing green spaces (Bingfield Park and Bernard Park vis Thornhill Square) and active travel routes (York Way Cycleway) with increased tree canopy; and create new permanent green spaces (Freeling Street pocket park) for residents and visitors to enjoy.
Albert Road Low Traffic Neighbourhood – this project will create a new pocket park, trees and planted areas in the Albert Road LTN which is currently a highly built area of high climate vulnerability with a primary school and two nurseries nearby. SuDs will be installed from reclaimed road space. Schoolchildren and local residents will be engaged throughout the development of this project.
Greening Kingston – Manorgate Roundabout – this project will green an existing empty, concrete pit roundabout and nearby streets to enhance the experience of walking to the nearby train station. This will include some depaving and adding soil and planting.
Dalyell Rd/Combermere Rd modal filter (Ferndale Low Traffic Neighbourhood) – this project will convert 12 parking spaces in the Ferndale LTN to rain gardens, while providing areas for outdoor seating. The rain gardens of approximately 120m2 will collect rainwater from a significant catchment area of 1,600m2.
Landor Road x Stockwell Green x Lingham (Ferndale Low Traffic Neighbourhood) – this project will convert paved areas to rain gardens, while also adding trees and flower beds. Approximately 144m2 of pavement space will be converted to rain gardens collecting rainwater from almost 980m2 of catchment area.
Sunnyhill Road/Valley Road near Sunnyhill School (Streatham Wells Area) – this project will convert 13 parking spaces into rain gardens. The rain garden will be approximately 250m2 and provide sustainable drainage for a catchment area of 1,403m2.
Greening existing Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (Maryland, Odessa, Atherton, Manbey, Woodgrange) – this project will incorporate greening into several of Newham’s Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. This will include the creation of new green public spaces with sustainable drainage and integrated active travel measures at modal filters. Modal filters are measures or points in a road that allow the passage of certain modes of transport, while restricting others.
Sutton Town Centre Greening and Flood Resilience Scheme – this project enhances the resilience of Sutton Town Centre. Interventions include removing concrete bases around trees to create new linear bioswales that can retain surface water and installing bike shelters and benches with integrated planting to encourage biodiversity.
Markhouse Area – this project will convert existing raised planters into ground-level and expanded sustainable drainage features. Planting in the SuDs area will consider local biodiversity and the project will also add new street trees.
Report: Greening Streets within London
In 2021, the GLA commissioned research from Vivid Economics to investigate the value of investing in street greening. The report, Greening Streets within London, modelled specific sites in three boroughs (Brent, Hackney, Westminster) to understand the potential natural capital benefits of significantly greening these sites to create "street parks".
The study found that green streets are likely to offer very good value for money with a high cost-benefit ratio for all three borough scenarios. The three example interventions could generate benefits worth £11.4m annually with over 50% of these benefits being from physical health and mental well-being. The Brent scenario demonstrated that in terms of social value, the intervention would break even in just three years. The report is available to download.
Note: The study commissioned by the GLA was part of an evidence gathering process to understand the potential economic benefits of street greening, and its findings helped inform the GLA but was not part of the criteria for funding awards as part of the Green and Healthy Streets Fund or for other future programmes.
Questions?
If you have any queries about the Green and Healthy Streets Fund, please contact the team at [email protected].
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