Experimental School Street SS53 at The Urswick School

Overview

Hackney Council is gathering views on School Street zone SS53 at The Urswick School. A School Street is where a road, or some roads, temporarily becomes a Pedestrian and Cycle Zone during school opening and closing times, whilst maintaining access for residents, pedestrians and cyclists. The purpose of School Streets is to tackle congestion, improve road safety, air quality and accessibility, and encourage active and sustainable travel for the journey to school.

Why we are trialling a School Street

The Council is committed through its Transport Strategy (2015-2025) to making Hackney’s roads safer for everyone living, working, and visiting Hackney. We aim to create an environment that will encourage more walking and cycling, and improve air quality and road safety in the borough.

Since 2013, there has been a significant rise in the number of car journeys in London, which has also been replicated in Hackney, most of which occurred on neighbourhood roads. We also know that around 55% of the traffic on the borough’s roads passes through Hackney without stopping.

We want to protect all of our communities from these rises in traffic, support people to make healthier local journeys, prioritise public transport for those who need it, and create cleaner, greener streets for everyone to enjoy. Our Transport Strategy includes a number of actions that this scheme will help to achieve:

• LN3: Improving air quality - Hackney will continue to tackle poor air quality, seeking to reduce NO2 emissions to achieve the National Air Quality objective of 40 mg/m3 
• LN10: School Clean Air Zones - Hackney Council will aim to develop and secure funding for projects to improve air quality in and around the borough’s schools. School Streets is one such project, with the temporary closure of roads outside schools that coincides with school opening and closing times.
• LN20: School Streets - Hackney will look to develop and trial School Streets proposals where roads, upon which schools are situated, are closed during certain times of the day.

The Council has already introduced School Streets at over 50 schools in the borough, and results from our School Streets show a reduction in traffic in the zones, improved air quality, and more parents and children walking and cycling to school.

How the School Street works

On 23 September 2024, Paragon Road, from the junction with Chatham Place to the junction with Valette Street, will become an experimental School Street zone (SS53). This road will temporarily become a Pedestrian and Cycle Zone in the morning and afternoon, operating from 8:00-9:00am and 3:00-4:00pm, Monday to Friday, and will not operate on weekends or during school holidays.

During the operational times, most vehicles are not permitted to access the School Street zone, except for those that have been granted a School Street exemption from that zone. The School Street is signposted with two timed Pedestrian and Cycle Zone signs at the entry points to the zone, and infractions can carry a penalty charge issued by a CCTV camera.

For details of the School Street SS53 zone, please refer to the drawing below.

How exemptions are allocated

Vehicles that are registered to a residential or business address within a School Streets zone are eligible for exemption from that School Street zone. Any vehicle already inside a School Street zone when it comes into operation is permitted to leave the zone at any time without incurring a penalty.

Vehicles driven by residents living outside of a School Street zone, parents and carers dropping off or collecting children at the school, school staff, friends, tradespeople, delivery vehicles, and any other non-exempt vehicles will not be permitted to enter the street during the School Streets operational times.

Special exemptions are considered on a case-by-case basis, and are available for Blue Badge holders and carers who need access to a property inside the zone. For more information on how to apply for an exemption and about how exemptions are allocated, please visit hackney.gov.uk/school-streets.

Have your say

Your views are important to us and will help the Council to make a decision on whether the scheme will be made permanent, with or without changes. Your feedback will be taken into consideration alongside traffic and travel-related evidence that will be collected through monitoring during the scheme’s experimental period.

The feedback period will remain open for six months following the launch of the experimental scheme on 23 September 2024. From this date a questionnaire will be accessible using the link below to comment on the School Street.

What happens next

The School Street (SS53) is being introduced using an experimental traffic order for a maximum period of 18 months, which means you can see how the scheme works and let us know how you think it is working. The views of residents and businesses, including any suggested changes to how the scheme operates, will be taken into account before any decision on whether or not to make the measure permanent.

Once the scheme is in place, formal consultation will run for six months, until 23 March 2025. The results will be available at hackney.gov.uk/school-streets.

Additional information

For more information and answers to frequently asked questions about School Streets, please visit: hackney.gov.uk/school-streets.

Accessibility statement

If you need any information on this survey in a different format please email movegreener@hackney.gov.uk

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in five working days.