Forum topic: Getting to school the healthier way

Planters to narrow the road and poles to support signs needed to create the Hazelwood Lane school street scheme

As Enfield Council puts in place the infrastructure for a new batch of school streets, the Clean Cities Campaign asks, "Could you do an 'active' school run?"

This week Enfield Council has begun work to install the infrastructure needed to create a new "school street" in Hazelwood Lane. Planters are being put in position at the points where vehicle exclusion zones will start and finish, along with poles which will support signs advising drivers about the restrictions. Also to come are automatic number plate recognition cameras, which will record the registrations of any non-exempt vehicles that drive past the control points.

The Hazelwood Lane scheme will provide a safer, quieter, cleaner and pleasanter environment for children and parents arriving and leaving Hazelwood Schools and the nearby Hazelwood Children's Centre at the northern end of Riverway. It's one of six new school streets coming into effect when the autumn term begins on 5th September. Another will be south of the North Circular in Highworth Road, outside the entrance to Bowes Primary.

The spread of school streets in London and elsewhere is a small step towards restoring one of the freedoms that people of my generation enjoyed when we were at primary and junior school but have been taken away from so many present-day kids because of the domination of the world outside our houses by motor cars. I think that everyone in my class either walked or biked to school and back by themselves from age 5, and we would play with friends on the way home, or explore the nearby streets and fields, improving our fitness and social skills.

It's unrealistic to expect such times to return in the near future, but there's still plenty of scope for the school run by car to be replaced by healthier, less stressful and more enjoyable ways of getting to and from school, and this is the subject of a campaign by Clean Cities, a Europe-wide coalition of NGOs and grassroots groups aiming to encourage cities to transition to zero-emission mobility by 2030.