News Articles Archive - Page 117 of 153

To celebrate National Park City Week (21^st – 27^th July), CRP released its Healthy Greening Report. Every year, London’s green spaces avoid an estimated £950 billion per year in public health costs for both physical and mental health.

Commissioned by the GLA, the report is designed to support businesses, landowners, business improvement districts, local authorities, community groups and any other organisation wanting to green outdoor space, in making a business case for green infrastructure. The report provides information to help focus the installation, improvement and maintenance of greening to provide health benefits for example to improve mental health and well-being and to increase walking in urban areas. It supports the Mayor of London’s aim to make London the first ever National Park City, where more than 50% of the city is green by 2050.

For further information on CRP’s greening programmes, contact Susannah Wilks.

TfL recently launched the Mayor’s Walking Action Plan. Based on objectives set out in the Mayor’s Transport strategy to ensure that 80% of journeys in London are made on foot, bicycle or by public transport. The action plan targets an extra million walking trips each day by 2024. CRP is proud to be supporting the delivery of these objectives with our partners. Walking helps to connect local communities and boost local businesses.

CRP’s Clean Air Route Finder shows routes developed by partners including Urban Partners and The Northbank BID that support local businesses by directing pedestrians along lesser known streets, with better air quality.

The Marylebone Low Emission Neighbourhood (LEN) was established after a successful bid byWestminster City Council to the Mayor of London’s Mayor’s Air Quality Fund, to tackle the challenge of air pollution in innovative ways. CRP programme manages the LEN on behalf of the council.

One of the trial behaviour change measures introduced is a 50% surcharge levied on drivers of pre-2015 diesel vehicles paying to park in the LEN area. The scheme has now been operational for over a year, resulting in a 16% reduction in the number of these older diesel vehicles parking in the LEN, without any obvious displacement to nearby parking zones.

As a result of the success of this trial, the council is now consulting on whether to bring in the new charges across the borough to improve air quality. If the surcharge were to be rolled out across the borough, the council estimates that journeys into central London by older and polluting diesel vehicles could be cut by over a quarter of a million.

Cllr Tim Mitchell, Westminster City Council cabinet member for environment and city management, said: “Our experience in Marylebone proves that the diesel parking surcharge works to improve air quality, by reducing the number of journeys made by polluting diesel cars. Residents tell us that air quality is their number one concern, which is why we want to roll out this change across Westminster so that all communities can benefit.”

Residents, businesses and visitors are being given the chance to give their views on the diesel parking surcharge in a public consultation, which runs until 12th September. The consultation documents can be found online and more information about the LEN is available at www.MaryleboneLEN.org or by contacting CRP’s Tom Linton-Smith.

CRP’s Smart Electric Urban Logistics (SEUL) project has been shortlisted for the SHD Logistics Awards, along with UPS and UK Power Networks.

The Logistics Awards is an annual celebration of excellence in the logistics and supply chain sectors and recognise the most impressive achievements throughout the industry over the past 12 months. This year’s awards are taking place on Thursday 20 September 2018 at The Swan, Shakespeare’s Globe. Fingers crossed!

For more information, please see the project webpage here or contact CRP’s Programme Manager Electric Freight, Tanja Dalle-Muenchmeyer.

In May 2018, the Mayor launched the Electric Vehicle (EV) Infrastructure Taskforce chaired by Shirley Rodrigues, Deputy Mayor for Environment and Energy. The 16-member Taskforce, which CRP has been asked to sit on, will provide guidance on how to implement the Mayor’s vision of a zero emission transport network by 2050, focusing on the lack of electric vehicle charging infrastructure that remains an important barrier to the take-up of EVs.

On 17 July, CRP joined the first of three EV Infrastructure workshops and contributed to facilitated group sessions on EV user types as well as user charging requirements. One of the interesting questions was: Is what users want actually what users need? Unsurprisingly, the discussions were animated.

For more information, please contact CRP’s Programme Manager Electric Freight on Tanja Dalle-Muenchmeyer or the Mayor’s team on EVTaskforce@tfl.gov.uk.

CRP has successfully concluded its Clean Air Small Business (CASB) Project funded by the Defra 2016/17 Air Quality Grant Scheme. Tackling central London’s poor air quality, the project supported small- and medium-sized businesses in the London Borough of Camden and City of Westminster to optimise their delivery and servicing activity. Using deliverBEST, an online business tool and support service developed by CRP, participating businesses could quickly identify and implement actions that resulted in time and cost savings, while reducing their impact on local air quality.

Through CASB, CRP was able to reach 90 businesses and organisations in Camden and Westminster, and raise awareness about the impact of deliveries and servicing trips on local air quality. Additionally, CRP engaged its targeted number of 40 businesses, having more in-depth conversations and carrying out various activities, including two workshops addressing deliveries and air quality.

Lessons learned from CASB have been applied to other current CRP projects including DEFRA-funded Clean Air Villages across five London boroughs.

Contact Business Engagement Officer, Sefinat Otaru, for more information.

A huge thank you to those who attended CRP’s Clean Air Together exhibition at the NLA Galleries over the past 2 months, especially those who made pledges to continue and extend our collective efforts to improve air quality.

We’re proud to have showcased our public and private partners’ efforts to almost 20,000 visitors to the NLA over June and July. And we’re hugely inspired by the 120 pledges ranging from choosing click & collect for online shopping deliveries and taking clean air routes to installing more green screens at schools and sharing cargo bikes with friends and neighbours.

Contact Brendon Harper for more information on CRP’s air quality work.

Cross River Partnership was commissioned by the GLA to pull together case studies and information from across central London about the fantastic greening projects that CRP’s partners and other London organisations have implemented; and how they are improving health and wellbeing of residents, employees and visitors. With the potential economic, social and environmental (such as climate change mitigation) benefits so high, it’s really important for everyone to do as much as they can to create extra and improved green space in central London.

CRP developed a toolkit that supports businesses, landowners, local authorities, business improvement districts and others to develop more greening in urban areas, especially for the benefits of health and wellbeing.

The toolkit also provides great examples of community-led maintenance of green infrastructure, that helps get people outside and active whilst developing new skills. Green projects don’t have to be large-scale. Smaller, linked projects also provide a network of greenery throughout the city, creating new things to see when visiting, living and working in London.

The toolkit will be launched during National Park City Week (21-29 July 2018) and is available on the CRP website here https://crossriverpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Healthy-Greening.pdf.

For further information please contact susannahwilks@crossriverpartnership.org

The Recruit London Programme is managed by Cross River Partnership and delivered in partnership with organisations including Westminster Council, The Crown Estate, Capital & Counties CG Ltd, and The Heart of London Business Alliance. The projects are delivered by CRP-employed Workplace Coordinators (WPCs) and Specialist Workplace Coordinators (SWPCs). The WPCs oversee the mainstream recruitment and the SWPCs work with unemployed people with health issues, physical disabilities, mental ill health and people experiencing homelessness. .

CRP’s Recruit London Specialist Workplace Coordinator Nikoletta Gjergji arranged for a paid placement for her candidate Mohamed to work at London Pride Parade on Saturday 7^thJuly 2018. Mohamed was employed as a causal health and safety officer and received 2 hours of Crowd Control and Safety training in preparation for the day. He thoroughly enjoyed walking along with the crowds and ensuring the health and safety of attendees by patrolling the grounds of the festival, monitoring electronic surveillance equipment, performing crowd control as well as providing information and directions to attendees.

Nikoletta met with Mohamed again on the following Monday for a catch up and to assess any improvements on his soft skills. Reportedly, the experience was something that he would not normally have known about or attended and he is so grateful to Nikki that he was put forward to the opportunity. He thoroughly enjoyed it – everyone on the team as well as the participants and visitors were extremely friendly and he made new friends, learnt new skills, as well as earnt a wage.

To refer clients to the Specialist Workplace Coordinator project or for further information, please contact Nikoletta Gjergji: nikolettagjergji@crossriverpartnership.org

CRP was commissioned by the Central London Sub-Regional Transport Partnership (CLSRTP), a collective of transport officers from central London’s eight local authorities, to undertake a study into promoting walking as a means to alleviate an overcrowded and heavily used tube network.

The main objective of this study is to provide a palette of interventions that promote the ‘walking tube’ approach, promoting walking between some of the busiest tube stations in central London to alleviate overcrowding and increase physical activity. The interventions range from changing perceptions of the tube network to using wayfinding technology to encourage walking trips.

Through encouraging increased walking, this report supports delivery of the ‘Healthy Streets’ approach championed in the Mayor’s Transport Strategy (MTS) and the target for 80% of Londoner’s trips to be on foot. Walking tube interventions offer cleaner air, less noise, more connected neighbourhoods, improved physical fitness, better mental health and wellbeing for Londoners. Encouraging walking increases social traffic on our streets that in turn generates economic traffic. The report coincides with the unveiling of the capital’s first Walking Action Plan.

Click here for a copy of the report.

For further information, contact CRP’s Vicky Keeble.

Archives: News Articles

Healthy Greening

Walking Action Plan

Marylebone Low Emission Neighbourhood Building a Legacy of Behaviour Change

SEUL Shortlisted

The Mayor’s EV Infrastructure Taskforce

CASB Project Successfully Completed

Clean Air Together Exhibition

Healthy Greening Report

Recruit London – London Pride Parade

Walking Tube in Central London