Planning priorities
Response to question on the Council’s response to the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE)’s planning recommendations, raised at Full Council on 23 January 2019
Planning priorities
Comments by Richard Ballerand
NICE’s advice centres around the designing of new roads and as the borough is both very small and already very densely populated, the Council has built very few new roads. We are constantly looking for ways to improve existing routes and we take the relative balance between walking, cycling and driving seriously. Indeed, the Council is committed to developing walking and cycling in the borough, to tackle issues such as obesity, air quality and climate change.
Although Kensington and Chelsea has a greater number of adults who cycle at least once per month than the London average (16.9%), we believe active travel can be further encouraged. To that end, we have recently implemented a series of measures to develop walking and cycling in the borough, such as 8km of Quietway cycle routes, two-way cycling in one-way streets, pedestrian countdown facilities and the 20mph pilot scheme in a number of wards. Later this year we will also trial at least one Healthy School Street.
Our efforts will continue: encouraging walking and cycling is the first priority in our new Local implementation plan. We have also subscribed to the Mayor’s target of at least 77 per cent of all trips to be made by walking, cycling or public transport by 2021 and to increase this to 85 per cent by 2041 (currently at 74%).