News Articles Archive - Page 80 of 152 - Cross River Partnership

CRP’s Creating Parklets for Community and Business Resilience is our recently-launched guidance document, as part of the Healthy Streets Everyday programme, to assist partners, local authorities, land owners, and everyone in between, on steps needed to design and implement successful parklets.

A parklet is a temporary pavement extension that sits in a parking bay(s). Parklets are flexible and temporary spaces that can provide extra outdoor space, which has become more important from COVID-19. But this resource attempts to take these learnings and provide guidance for parklets well-beyond COVID-19.

Research has shown that parklets and green spaces can:

Improve revenue and footfall for local businesses,
Improve mental health and wellbeing
Provide places to stop and rest, with shade and shelter
Encourage active travel
Reduce the effects of pollution through healthy greening.
Improve accessibility and safety

Businesses and communities should be an integral part of the design process, so it is important to engage with local artists, schools, gardening groups, businesses and communities. A parklet that is reflective of its community is likely to see more people using it, easier maintenance, and more likely to be successful. Most importantly, designing a parklet should be fun, so get creative and think outside the box!

To find out more, please contact CRP HSE Project Manager Fiona Coull,
fionacoull@crossriverpartnership.org

With the summer holidays now in full swing, there is a brilliant opportunity to start implementing School Streets in time for schools reopening in September. The Hackney School Streets Hotline provided by CRP’s Healthy Streets Everyday (HSE) project is a free telephone service aimed at helping HSE Partners and London Boroughs to design and implement successful School Streets.

The Hotline service, which has been extended to the 28th of September, is also now available to ALL London Boroughs and provides tailored one-to-one support as well as up-to-the-minute, site specific advice from The London Borough of Hackney – a HSE partner who has years of direct ‘on the ground’ experience in implementing School Streets. As the service continues to be well used, we encourage booking a 30 minute time slot in advance of the hotline’s weekly Monday operating hours to avoid disappointment.

As schools reopen, School Streets will play an important role in enabling social distancing at drop off and pick up times by creating more space outside of schools. The Hotline Service can help HSE Partners and other London Boroughs to quickly implement School Streets that facilitate social distancing, support travel to school by walking, cycling or scooting, and that are in line with TfL’s Streetspace programme. CRP and its partners are extremely grateful to the Mayor’s Air Quality Fund for making this Schools Streets Hotline Extension possible.

For further information about the service, including how to book a session, please contact CRP HSE Project Manager Fiona Coull, fionacoull@crossriverpartnership.org

With the fast approaching 2021 ULEZ expansion and the proposed 2035 petrol and diesel car sales ban on the horizon, now is the time to start thinking electric.

We’re excited to be joined by the Environmental Defense Fund and Brixton BID for our next Live Share session on Thursday 30th July, 2pm. We will be discussing why moving to electric makes sense for businesses, featuring some of the pioneering initiatives that have been adopted around London in order to work towards an economic and environmentally sustainable future.

The summer season is well and truly here! Many of us will be enjoying Home Holidays, or Staycations, this year. There is a silver lining to every cloud, and there is certainly the opportunity for domestic tourism to replace at least some of the usual London summer overseas visitors and their expenditure. London & Partners’ #BecauseImaLondoner campaign is something we can all get behind and support in helping promote London’s hidden gems to new and expanded audiences – just register online and start uploading your area’s attractions.

There will also be a Heritage Open Days festival from 11-20 September 2020. Again, register online and start promoting interesting buildings and sites for people to visit, including heritage walks and cycle rides.

For any of you lucky enough to be taking any holiday over the coming summer months, have a fantastic time, and we look forward to continuing working with you when you’re back!

As reported in The Guardian, High Street spending enjoyed a much-needed boost as lockdown eased on 4th July, but hairdressers benefited more than pubs and restaurants, according to an early snapshot of consumer behaviour. As economists wait for hard data on the strength of consumer spending for this latest easing of lockdown restrictions, analysis of 3 million UK customers’ spending habits by the digital bank Revolut suggested that high-street spending on Saturday 4^th July was double that of the previous weekend, despite only England relaxing lockdown restrictions, and ran at 86% of an average pre-Covid Saturday.

CRP’s High Streets as Havens LiveShare session on 2^nd July showed the 92 attendees how High Streets can re-open safely and sustainably. Please see CRP’s Toolkit for all sorts of advice, guidance and top tips on how to make High Streets good for business, good for our health, and good for air quality.

While spending in pubs was up 91% on the weekend before, Revolut said its data suggested sales were around half the levels it would expect on a normal Saturday. Diane Wehrle, a director of Springboard, said: “Despite what are positive signs for the hospitality industry on the first weekend of reopening, it is essential to recognise that footfall remains at around half of the 2019 level, with a decline of -57.7% across all destinations in England on Saturday 4^th July. As the industry takes small steps in reopening post pandemic, we recognise there is still a long way to go before the industry returns to normality.”

CRP is supporting the Mayor of London’s plans to help restart London’s economy in a COVID-safe way. As lockdown eases, our city faces the unprecedented challenge of recovering from the economic impacts of COVID-19, whilst staying safe. London is Open, but we must still all play our part to control the spread of COVID-19. Together we can keep London safe. We want to make sure London emerges from lockdown stronger than ever.

CRP’s accountable body, Westminster City Council, is supporting businesses exiting the lockdown by implementing measures such as footway widening and temporary road closures to make the West End as safe as possible for visitors. Businesses can also apply for fast-track temporary licences to extend their facilities into outdoor spaces for customers, and these measures support social distancing.

CRP’s partner Transport for London is continuing to work with London businesses to support a safe and sustainable restart and would be grateful if you could kindly spare around 5 minutes to complete this short s urvey before it closes at 17:00 on 14^th July. The findings from this research will inform the ways TfL can best support the return of office-based employees to restart and recover from the Coronavirus crisis by providing tailored travel advice to help you and your employees.

CRP are also continuing to deliver our programme of projects whilst working remotely in collaboration with our various funders and partners. Working from home is now feeling like the new ‘normal’ and we have all increased our skills on MS Teams which has been instrumental in making contacting and collaborating with partners and stakeholders much easier.

For further information please contact CRP Operations Manager Carol Quamina, carolquamina@crossriverpartnership.org

As we emerge from lockdown, many people have enjoyed the benefits of quiet streets and cleaner air. We need to protect this alongside supporting the economic recovery. One proven method to help improve air quality and ease traffic congestion is retiming of deliveries out of peak times. There are also benefits for freight operators and their customers.

In doing this, it’s vital to ensure that such deliveries do not cause another kind of pollution: noise. As part of our work co-ordinating the Central London Sub-Regional Transport Partnership, CRP have commissioned EMSOL to undertake monitoring of delivery points which will test technology that matches specific deliveries to any excessive noise detected and we aim to use this to identify the exact source. This will help freight operators, landowners and local authorities in understanding and ensuring best practice in quiet deliveries. Tied with commitments to best practice such as adopting TfL’s Quiet Deliveries guidance, this can help to provide confidence to residents that deliveries can take place without disturbance and any incidents can be investigated and managed effectively. We look forward to sharing our findings later this year.

For more information, please contact CRP Project Manager Tom Linton-Smith, tomlintonsmith@crossriverpartnership.org

The City of London Corporation has begun delivery of its transport recovery plan, designed to ensure the safety of residents, workers and visitors as people return to the Square Mile. The scheme is primarily focused on providing the space needed to maintain social distancing on our streets and enabling safe walking, cycling and the managed use of public transport, similar to all other London boroughs. Temporary on-street measures include introducing:

more space for walking and cycling, including increased cycle parking
timed closures to motor vehicles on some streets (7am–7pm Monday to Friday), allowing limited access to premises for people with access needs, deliveries and servicing
closures of streets to through traffic or other changes in operation, e.g. switching to one-way or giving priority to buses
an advisory 15 miles per hour speed limit
signage to promote social distancing and encourage considerate behaviour

Details of the changes to individual streets are displayed in the windows of the Guildhall, on on-street notices and online. These changes are being installed on street in stages. They are adaptable to the changing circumstances and measures can be scaled up or reduced as required and in line with the latest Government guidance. The City of London Corporation are continuously reviewing and monitoring the changes to ensure the safety of all residents, workers and visitors as people return to the Square Mile in the coming months.

We’re excited to announce the first phase of upgrades to our Clean Air Route Finder! Since lockdown, more Londoners than ever are walking and cycling to get around. CRP have been working with King’s College London to improve the Clean Air Route Finder to make it even more useful for active travel, while reducing your exposure to air pollution. Now live, the tool is layered to display:

Clean Air Walking Routes (Wellbeing Walks) showing alternative routes between transport hubs and key pedestrian destinations that we have identified with participating partners. These routes have air pollutant concentrations 30-60% lower than the usual, more heavily trafficked options.
Cycling Times to central London’s Rail Stations (Stations) showing users how far they can cycle from each station in 2- and 5-minute intervals
TfL’s Cycleways (Cycle Routes) showing a single network cycle (formerly known as Superhighways and Quietways) that links communities, businesses and destinations across the city
Walking Tube routes showing walking routes between select stations across central London.

We are continuing to refine our upgrades and will be releasing more useful features over the coming weeks. For more information, please contact CRP Project Manager Sefinat Otaru, sefinatotaru@crossriverpartnership.org

Archives: News Articles

Creating Parklets for Community and Business Resilience

School Streets for September

Ditch Diesel: Your Electric Vehicle Options Explained

Home Holidays

The New Normal

#LondonIsOpen

Continuing to work from home

Keeping an ear on quiet deliveries

COVID-19: Temporary changes to Square Mile streets

Upgrading the Clean Air Route Finder