School Streets

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School Streets

School Streets create safer environments around schools for children and the community. A ‘School Street’ is an area transformed into a pedestrian and cycling zone outside of a school. They operate from Monday to Friday during the school term only at set times for drop-off (morning) and pick-up (afternoon). Roads remain open to people walking, scooting and cycling and those who are exempt from the closure.

School Streets are either operated manually by volunteers who place a physical gate or barrier across the road at the closure times alongside designated closure points, or by an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) camera system. Sometimes other mitigations such as one-way streets are also used to support the scheme.

A Transport for London study found that School Streets reduced nitrogen dioxide at drop off time by up to 23%, and 18% of parents reported driving to school less when their child attended a school where there was a School Street.

More information including the locations of current School Streets can be found in the Document Library to the right of this page.

We are currently working hard to deliver more School Streets in Enfield. Find out more about our upcoming School Streets in the FAQs.

We continue to reach out to schools so that we can continue to expand the initiative and make it safer for young people, parents and school staff to travel to school actively by walking, cycling, scooting, or otherwise! Enfield Council is committed to extending the reach of School Streets as far as possible as part of our Journeys and Places programme. In order for schools to be considered for a School Street in the future, we require them to complete an Expression of Interest form. The form can be found below.

School Streets create safer environments around schools for children and the community. A ‘School Street’ is an area transformed into a pedestrian and cycling zone outside of a school. They operate from Monday to Friday during the school term only at set times for drop-off (morning) and pick-up (afternoon). Roads remain open to people walking, scooting and cycling and those who are exempt from the closure.

School Streets are either operated manually by volunteers who place a physical gate or barrier across the road at the closure times alongside designated closure points, or by an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) camera system. Sometimes other mitigations such as one-way streets are also used to support the scheme.

A Transport for London study found that School Streets reduced nitrogen dioxide at drop off time by up to 23%, and 18% of parents reported driving to school less when their child attended a school where there was a School Street.

More information including the locations of current School Streets can be found in the Document Library to the right of this page.

We are currently working hard to deliver more School Streets in Enfield. Find out more about our upcoming School Streets in the FAQs.

We continue to reach out to schools so that we can continue to expand the initiative and make it safer for young people, parents and school staff to travel to school actively by walking, cycling, scooting, or otherwise! Enfield Council is committed to extending the reach of School Streets as far as possible as part of our Journeys and Places programme. In order for schools to be considered for a School Street in the future, we require them to complete an Expression of Interest form. The form can be found below.

  • School Streets Review

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    Twelve School Streets were implemented in September 2020 with the aim of;

    • creating a safer and cleaner entrance to the school
    • targeting traffic and road danger reduction near the school gates, to protect our vulnerable children
    • contributing to a reduction in air and noise pollution
    • encouraging the uptake of active modes of travel such as scooting, walking and cycling.

    A statutory consultation was open on the School Streets project page from October 2020 through to 6th June 2021 which received over 850 responses. This data has now been evaluated and a recommendation put forward to make all 12 locations permanent. We are awaiting the outcome of this decision.

    This will include the addition of some camera enforcement that will enable schools to reduce the level of marshals, if they wish. As part of making the schemes permanent, planters will be refreshed and the Council will take on maintenance responsibility. Rubberised kerbs will also be installed around the planters to ensure they are positioned correctly.

    A decision on this recommendation is expected by the end of September. We will write to the wider community to details our findings and the outcome of this decision in due course.



  • Research published including data from some of our School Streets

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    Transport for London (TfL) have published two pieces of research that included some of Enfield's School Streets. The first measures air quality at School Streets, and the second is a survey asking people about their experiences of School Streets.

    To measure the air quality benefits of the new School Streets, 30 cutting-edge sensors from the Breathe London network were installed at 18 primary schools across Brent, Enfield and Lambeth to record nitrogen dioxide levels. The air quality monitoring project, funded by FIA Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, was launched in September 2020 to give the most accurate indication yet of how the School Streets scheme is working.

    Closing the roads around schools to traffic at pick-up and drop-off times has reduced polluting nitrogen dioxide levels by up to 23 per cent and is strongly supported by parents, new research published by the Mayor Sadiq Khan reveals.


    TfL has also today published new survey results which suggest that interventions outside schools to make walking and cycling safer are popular with parents and carers and have contributed to a drop in car use. Parents and carers from 35 schools took part in the study and the results showed:

    • 81 per cent of those surveyed at schools where measures had been implemented believed a School Street is suitable for their school
    • 73 per cent of parents and carers at these schools agree with School Street measures remaining in place while social distancing is still required, with 77 per cent supporting the changes being kept in the long term subject to consultation
    • Two thirds (66 per cent) of parents and carers at schools without School Street measures support their implementation while social distancing is still required and a majority of these parents (59 per cent) also support such measures in the long term subject to community engagement and consultation
    • Since the pandemic, parents and carers reported walking to school more, and driving less, at both School Street schools and those without School Streets
    • At schools with School Streets, parents and carers reported driving to school less as a result of both the coronavirus pandemic and the School Street. The School Street had a greater impact (-18 per cent) on reducing car travel to school compared to the impact of coronavirus (-12 per cent).


    To read more detail and for links to the reports, visit the Mayor of London's website here

Page last updated: 09 Dec 2024, 12:05 PM