News on Our Healthy Walworth - Low Emission neighbourhood

Over 750 of you have visited the Our Healthy Walworth Commonplace website and we are starting to form a picture of the issues that are of greatest concern. In the survey we included six issues that our previous research identified as being critical to quality of life in the Walworth area. Here is how you have ranked them so far:

1st: Reducing through traffic

2nd: Tackling air quality

3rd: Encouraging people to walk/cycle more

4th: Reducing traffic accident hot-spots

5th: Making the area attractive for shopping and leisure

6th: Improving bus journey times

This tells us that the daily impact of traffic volumes is a major concern for local people - there is a direct link between improving air quality (2nd ranked priority), encouraging walking and cycling (3rd ranked priority) and reducing through traffic (top priority). Quite simply, one is a key to the others.

We know that this matches the air pollution levels we have found on the ground. The UK air quality target for nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant linked to life threatening lung problems, is 40 micrograms per cubic metre (ug/m3). Measurements for 2018 showed many locations in Elephant and Castle and Walworth are regularly over this recommended limit:

· Notre Dame School – Annual Mean NO2 (ug/m3): 40.59

· New Kent Road – Annual Mean NO2 (ug/m3): 43.91

· New Kent Road, near Rodney Place – Annual Mean NO2 (ug/m3): 54.22

· Walworth Road opposite junction to Elephant Road – Annual Mean NO2 (ug/m3): 50.39

· Newington Causeway – Annual Mean NO2 (ug/m3): 67.56

· 239 Walworth Road – Annual Mean NO2 (ug/m3): 49.97

· 351 Walworth Road Annual Mean NO2 (ug/m3): 39.32

· 80 Camberwell Road Annual Mean NO2 (ug/m3): 60.52

Do you agree with our analysis of the issues? There’s still plenty of time to have your say on our online map – we’ve extended the opening until 31st December.

Please share this news item with your local friends, family and neighbours so that they can add their voices using the sharing buttons below. If you have a street, community or school parents' WhatsApp group, please copy and send this link and encourage more participation: https://ourhealthywalworthmap.commonplace.is/