Cross River Partnership joins Future Cities Forum 'New Districts' this month

Cross River Partnership will be joining Future Cities Forum's New Districts' discussion this month to talk about its work supporting BIDs and councils tackle their healthy streets programmes.

The organisation says that evidence has become critical to create healthy streets and neighbourhoods, supporting partners with its insightful traffic and active travel data on how spaces, streets and neighbourhoods are used.

CRP has continued to work with London's South Bank BID and VivaCity on understanding traffic levels and emissions in the local area. The recent changes from the Spine Route’s traffic filters and highway improvements bring a new focus to the reporting, and the CRP team has been busy analysing and reporting on this data throughout January. CRP says it is delighted to be supporting South Bank BID on this, and is really pleased this data continues to be used to support their public realm decision-making for nearly four years.  

Through Smarter Greener Logistics, CRP has been working collaboratively with the London Borough of Southwark to understand traffic around Cycleway 4, before the cycleway has been fully installed. This helps Southwark gain a really clear picture of vehicle movements and modelled air quality impacts on the local area, using VivaCity’s high tech artificial intelligence traffic sensors. CRP will be analysing data during 2024 for 3 months once the cycleway has been completed to understand the changes that have taken place.  

Pollution from traffic is a major cause of climate change and Southwark Council is investing funds to combat the effect on infrastructure and streets in the borough.

The Council will invest £1 million in climate change projects that will protect the borough’s most vulnerable areas against the worst impacts of the climate crisis. This announcement is to help deliver the Climate Resilience and Adaptation Strategy, which after a period of consultation in the autumn, has been adopted by cabinet.

As the impact of the climate emergency intensifies, the council is taking decisive action to protect residents from the current and future impacts of the changing climate. While it remains steadfast in its commitment to be a carbon-neutral borough by 2030, it is acknowledging the need to prepare as international responses to the issue lag and the impacts continue to affect communities globally.

The consultation for the strategy heard from residents and businesses in the borough about the impacts of climate change that are already being felt. The findings painted a vivid picture for the importance of this strategy in Southwark. Changes have included new, targeted actions which will support communities which are the most vulnerable to climate change, and in many cases are already experiencing the worst impacts. This has been backed-up by £1 million of funding to spend on key projects in these climate vulnerable areas to help address things such as flooding and overheating.

A detailed action plan has been produced with a number of actions that build on resident feedback – such as developing an approach to address ‘hot homes’ in the borough. Something also highlighted by engagement with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, whose landmark study revealed the escalating effects of summers on UK housing. 

The strategy defines how the council will continue to protect communities, homes, infrastructure, and the environment from the physical impacts of climate change. This includes extreme weather such as heat and flooding, risks to water and food supply as well as the emergence of new pests and diseases. The borough-wide strategy sets out how the council will:

• Future-proof the borough’s buildings, streets, and critical infrastructure

• Work with others to prepare, plan, and respond to challenges and shocks

• Improve the borough at the same time, such as by improving air quality and biodiversity and reducing inequalities
  

Given the urgency of the climate emergency, Southwark Council has already taken action to strengthen resilience locally including the reshaping of planning policy for new buildings to minimise overheating, additional sustainable urban drainage schemes, increased planting programmes, and enhanced emergency planning to effectively respond to residents in times of need.