School Streets
Image: Martin Williamson
Image: Etta Collier
“School streets are a total joy! The air smells and tastes completely differently. I can see the confidence and freedom in my son”
Why do we love School Streets?
School Streets make a real difference to the air pollution levels and road danger around schools, resulting from temporarily restricting motor traffic at drop-off and pick-up times. This allows children to benefit from cleaner air on their way to school, and to walk, cycle or scoot more safely to school.
Our School Streets campaign
Mums for Lungs began our School Streets campaign in 2019 by contacting 300 schools in illegally polluted areas across London to raise awareness with teachers and parents about the scheme. We subsequently set up a Facebook group to facilitate the interest generated across the country. The group now has over 1500 members, including council officers, teachers, parents and carers.
When we started campaigning on School Streets, there were only around 85 schemes in London. 5 years later, there are over 800! We’ve played a crucial role in garnering support from councils for the scheme, and in supporting parents to campaign for a School Street at their school. Our repeated research on the costs of enforcing School Streets with cameras has played a strong part in countering the narrative that councils cannot afford to implement the scheme.
School Streets resources and actions
Since our initial campaign, we’ve produced campaign guides, template letters, flyers and posters, run webinars, supported many individuals, local authorities and schools with conversations and school assemblies and carried out research on the costs of School Streets. We continue to empower parents to campaign for the scheme with one-to-one calls and our School Street clinics.
Get in touch if you would like some advice, and find out more below.
