A new School Street and Clean Air Route have been launched in Upper Edmonton, designed to improve road safety and air quality.
The route on Grove Street outside St John and St James Church of England Primary School (N18) was delivered by the Enfield Council’s Journeys and Places programme to encourage people in Enfield to make sustainable daily journeys for themselves and for the planet.
The work is part of a wider regeneration project around Fore Street, Angel Edmonton, that was funded through the Mayor of London’s Good Growth Fund
The primary aim of School Streets is to remove motor traffic from outside of school gates to improve air quality, make the public space more welcoming and provide opportunities for social interaction and children’s play.
Unlike other School Streets in the borough that operate at set times from Monday to Friday during term time, the restrictions on Grove Street are permanent and will apply 24 hours a day and seven days a week throughout the year.
The area will also benefit from improved access to the new affordable workspaces for young people at the recently launched Angel Yard.
A day of celebration took place at St John and St James Church of England Primary School on Thursday 20 July to mark the completion of the works and to highlight the benefits the School Street and Clean Air Route will bring to the area.
The day began when the architects of the project did a presentation to the school children at the school’s assembly, along with Enfield Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment, Cllr Rick Jewell, to show how the students’ ideas contributed towards the School Street design.
Pupils attended their school’s summer fair later that day which saw many activities, including a scavenger hunt at the School Street and a smoothie bike where children pedalled to make themselves a fruit drink.
Cllr Rick Jewell said: “We are creating a greener Enfield and tackling air pollution by introducing more School Streets in the borough. School Streets help make walking and cycling to school safer by cleaning up air around schools and stopping dangerous levels of traffic.
“We’ve delivered 19 School Streets so far and will continue planning more in areas where they are needed the most. We will always work closely with parents and schools along with nearby residents as we progress the schemes in the near future.”
As part of the project, an active travel route between the junction of Grove Street with Fore Street and the railway overbridge at Joyce Avenue will improve accessibility and connectivity of the active travel network.
The route will provide an opportunity for a potential future connection with Silver Street Overground station in the north, Meridian Water in the east, and North Middlesex Hospital to the west.
Enfield has 19 School Streets across the borough, improving air quality and making it safer for primary school children to walk, cycle and scoot to school.