Entertaining children and enjoying family time together doesn’t have to come with the stress and financial cost of driving: being stuck in traffic congestion, searching for a parking spot, and paying sky-high fuel prices.
Here are seven ideas for family activities and destinations that can be reached using Bromley’s rail or bus networks. Please share any recommendations of your own in the comments.
Continue reading “Car-free family days out for half term”
Join us on the next Kidical Mass bike ride in Bromley on 29 October! Meet 11am at Bromley South Station, or 10am for the feeder ride from Beckenham Green.
Part of the global Kidical Mass movement, Kidical Mass Bromley is a group of local residents who run family-friendly cycle rides and call for safe streets for everyone. Bromley Living Streets is one of the local organisations supporting Kidical Mass Bromley. We hope these ride will highlight the urgent need for safer, cleaner, and healthier streets for everyone.
Johanna Johansson, founding member of Kidical Mass Bromley and one of the organisers of the first ride on 30 October 2022 said: “Bicycles are the main means of transport for our family of three. We rarely see other families on cycles locally. I hope this ride will bring cycling families together and encourage more to cycle.”
It looks to be a spectacular Bank Holiday Weekend, weatherwise. Here are 3 reasons you should consider spending tomorrow (Sunday) doing RideLondon 2023.
In our opinion, the number one reason to do the ride is so you know a safe, quiet route from Bromley into London. The Bromley feeder ride starts at Bromley South train station at 8.30am. The Bromley feeder ride includes cyclists of all abilities.
The second reason to do it is because it’s an opportunity to see your city and cycling in a completely different way. Experiencing our streets as they could be if they weren’t dominated by cars, and seeing that cyclists really do come in all shapes and sizes and are ordinary people. This last point is important given the media stereotypes of cyclists as MAMILs (middle aged men in lycra). People who cycle are normal people getting from A to B. That’s what the RideLondon FreeCycle is all about.
We’re a campaign group so our third reason is focused on our goals, which you can read about at https://bromleyls.org.uk. Last week Bromley came at the bottom of London Cycling Campaign’s Climate Safe Streets report. Bromley Council is simply not delivering schemes to decarbonise streets. Read the report and then join us and other Bromley residents in trying to turn things around. Getting in the saddle tomorrow could be your first step in making our borough a better place to live for now and for the future.
One last thing. The Bromley feeder ride organisers would love to hear from you if you could consider volunteering as a marshall for their ride. Get in touch with us at bromleygroup AT livingstreets.org.uk if you’re interested. Do it for the kids.
Do you have one or more children at school? If the answer is yes, ask your child/ren’s teachers to register their school now for Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel, the UK’s biggest inter-school walking, wheeling, scooting and cycling to school competition.
Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel inspires pupils to make active journeys to school, to improve air quality in their neighbourhood and discover how these changes benefit their world. What’s not to like?
So far, 16 Bromley schools have signed up to participate in the Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel 2023. There are more than 100 schools in the Borough. Help us increase the number of schools participating today!
Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel 2023 runs from 20 til 31 March.
Join us on the next Kidical Mass bike ride in Bromley on 26 March! Meet 11am at Bromley South Station!
Part of the global Kidical Mass movement, Kidical Mass Bromley is a group of local residents who run family-friendly cycle rides and call for safe streets for everyone. Bromley Living Streets is one of the local organisations supporting Kidical Mass Bromley. We hope these ride will highlight the urgent need for safer, cleaner, and healthier streets for everyone.
Johanna Johansson, founding member of Kidical Mass Bromley and one of the organisers of the first ride (on 30 October 2022) said: “Bicycles are the main means of transport for our family of three. We rarely see other families on cycles locally. I hope this ride will bring cycling families together and encourage more to cycle.”
As a follow‐up to our 2021 report on air pollution around Bromley schools, Bromley Living Streets have managed to get 12 air pollution monitors to be used at schools, as part of a big project funded by the charity Asthma and Lung UK (https://www.asthma.org.uk/). The monitors need to be set up as soon as possible, so we are reaching out to schools across Bromley Borough and offering the monitors on a ‘first come first served’ basis. If you think your school’s headteacher might agree to putting up the monitors please read on! Here’s what you (and the headteacher) need to know:
What do we need? We need permission from the school to attach three small plastic tubes (called ‘diffusion tubes’) to fences, walls or gates out of reach (we recommend 2 metres off the ground). There needs to be free circulation of air round the tube and they need to be located as near to the road as possible. Each tube will remain in place for 3 to 4 weeks and will then be sent to a lab for analysis. We will get the results back 6 weeks later. (Further details available on request.)
Why is this worth doing? London car pollution is at its highest level since the start of the pandemic, and according to a report published in February 57 Bromley schools exceed the interim WHO guideline for PM2.5, and all Bromley schools exceed the WHO guideline for Nitrogen Dioxide (in particular, see the table on pages 49 to 52 of the report). Air pollution can cause new lung conditions like lung cancer and worsen existing ones like asthma. Children are particularly vulnerable as their lungs are still growing. Results from your school’s diffusion tubes will give an indicative idea of how bad the problem is. The data can be used to raise awareness and demand change. The charity Asthma and Lung UK offers support and ideas for how to take action, including through its ‘Clean Air Champions‘ scheme for primary schools.
What next? Get permission from the school, ideally this week. We are very happy to talk to someone in the school administration if you think this would be helpful, and we are happy to try to help answer any questions you might have. Thanks for taking the time to engage with this!
A special meeting of Bromley Council’s Environment Committee will be held at 9am on Friday 15 July 2022. This meeting has one agenda item: the future of School Streets in London Borough of Bromley. If you’re a Bromley resident, do this now:
At the Environment meeting on 21 June, a fractious debate took place over the council’s review of School Streets. On 24 June, Cllr Nicholas Bennett (Portfolio Holder for Transport) decided Bromley Council will not actively roll out School Streets in the borough. The following Friday (1 July), Bromley Labour and Bromley Liberal Democrats both independently “called in” this decision. This means the decision goes back to the Environment Committee to reconsider. This is happening on Friday 15 July, and that’s why we hope as many Bromley residents as possible will submit questions to this meeting or attend it in person.
A “call in” meeting revisits a decision made by Bromley Council. Historically, call in meetings in Bromley provide a valuable opportunity to show the strength of feeling on an issue. For example, the call in meeting on the decision to relocate Beckenham Library took place during working hours on a weekday, but the public gallery was packed.
It is worth noting that it is not only opposition parties who call in decisions. For example, Bromley Conservative councillors previously called in a decision on the Crofton Road cycle way.
You can find out more by clicking one of these links:
Bromley Living Streets’ briefing on school streets
Happy New Year! Can you spare 5 minutes today to send a question to Bromley Council Environment Committee? There’s no time to lose: questions need to be submitted by 5pm on 5 January to be accepted for the committee meeting on 19 January – full details of how to submit questions can be found here, and information about the meeting can be found here.
Bromley Council’s Environment and Community Services PDS Committee examines executive decisions and reviews policy on transport (highways development, traffic, road safety and parking), street services, waste and recycling and parks and open spaces. We in Bromley Living Streets think that asking questions to the Environment Committee is a very valuable way to let the Council know what matters to local people – particularly important to do now, given that local elections are taking place on 5 May 2022. Environment Committee meetings are the place where Bromley Council’s projects and policies are scrutinised, and members of the public raising issues in this forum is an important part of local democracy and a key way of encouraging local councillors to take action.
So what should you ask questions about? That’s up to you, but we have some ideas you might want to consider. Below we present some ideas for questions relating to active travel and safe streets across the borough, including pedestrian crossings, air pollution, school streets, speed limits, Killed or Seriously Injured (KSI) statistics and COP26. We also encourage you to look at the Council’s Environment Matters newsletter (available here) and take this opportunity to ask the Council for clarification or evidence on the topics and claims contained in the newsletter.
Feel free to Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) us into your email when you submit your questions, or forward your submitted questions to us after sending them to committee.services@bromley.gov.uk, so that we are aware of the issues that have been raised.
Potential topics and questions:
Pedestrian crossings
Air pollution
School Streets
Speed limits
Net carbon zero target
Killed or Seriously Injured (KSI) statistics
Please do get in touch with any questions, suggestions, feedback, or if you’d like us to put you in touch with other Bromley Living Streets members living in your neighbourhood.
Best wishes for the New Year from Bromley Living Streets
As summer term 2021 draws to an end, we at Bromley Living Streets have been reflecting on the last school year. What improvements have we seen in Bromley since September that are enabling children to safely actively travel to school and where is there need for so much more to be done?
We have seen the implementation of 6 school streets across the borough although funding was obtained by Bromley Council for 11 – we are eagerly awaiting to see 5 more schools to be set up with school streets, will this happen in Autumn term 2021? Aware that more needs to be done in the borough to improve road safety for our children in September 2021, we launched our first Bromley Schools Travel Survey. Our survey was issued to all Schools in the London Borough of Bromley and we received 5,464 responses from 89 Schools.
The good news is that 42% of respondents are already actively travelling (walking, scooting and cycling) to and from school. Yet the survey results still demonstrate that more than half are relying upon cars or buses as their means of travel.
We asked parents and carers, ‘Do you have any concerns about how your child will travel to school in September 2020?’ For those who are travelling by car 54% did not provide any comments but those that did cited the following concerns providing insight as to why they choose to travel by car;
A concern raised predominantly by parents/carers with children in secondary school education. Comments provided at the time showed that children were waiting up to 40 minutes for a bus both on the way to and from school due to Covid-19 travel restrictions.
“…it seems there is not enough buses because the ones that are running just keep going straight past the bus stop because they are full or they are not allowing school children on.”
“…the buses have been refusing to take them I’ve been there and seen it. There are no extra buses on our route, the buses either stop and refuse to take them or the drive straight past.”
“We have been having problems with my daughter being able to get a bus home. Twice last week the buses drove past them. So I had to go and collect her….”
“buses will be packed….more cars will be on the road and the war memorial junction in Chislehurst is dangerous enough at present even before more cars and the kids coming home later during local traffic rush hour.”
‘Traffic and Road Safety’ concerns highlighted by parents and carers when responding to our survey indicated that this is the main deterrent to children choosing to either walk or cycle to school.
“We like the idea on travelling by bicycle to school but the lack of save cycling on parts of the A21 holds us back“
“Because of covid we are driving. He could cycle if there were cycle lanes“
“I wish there were proper bike route from Bromley centre to Ravenswood. Since there isn’t , my son will use the bus which is often overflowed and at times he gets to school late as the driver do not open the door.”
“I would like her to travel to school by bicycle (when she starts secondary), but the roads are too unsafe without me“
“Extremely busy roads near the school – many ‘almost’ accidents”
“Traffic is crazy on the school roads and pavement space is limited. I’m always so worried that a child will end up in the road one day!“
“…I will now take him as restrictions on buses & road to school unsuitable to ride a bike or walk“
“I wish it was safe for my children. To cycle to school. I hate adding to the pollution.“
“Tylney Road is a ticking time bomb for a child to get hit by a car. With the lining up against the fence to get through the gates, adults and children are constantly having to walk into the busy road on Tylney Road. ”
You may be wondering – so what? We know traffic and road safety is a huge concern from Bromley residents but what are you doing with the information you have gathered?
Ruben de Rijcke, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
This report by Bromley Living Streets presents key data on air pollution and safety around Bromley schools, and presents ideas for how Bromley residents can take action to improve their neighbourhood between now and the May 2022 local elections.
Bromley Council is under Conservative control, with Conservative councillors in 50 of the 60 seats in Full Council. This report takes as its starting point the recent claim made by Bromley Conservatives that “no schools are exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution” in the London Borough of Bromley (see below).
First, we make the case that the use of the word “unsafe” is factually incorrect in this context. We draw on the same modelled data used by Bromley Conservatives, as well as commitments made by Bromley Council in its Air Quality Action Plan. We also present air quality data we have collected ourselves in June and July 2021, using the Flow2 portable air monitor produced by Plume Labs.
Second, we present data collected through our School Travel Survey, indicating high demand for action to improve roads around Bromley’s schools. 5,500 Bromley parents responded to our School Travel Survey last autumn, and the overwhelming message was that parents would love their children to walk or cycle to school, but at present they do not feel local roads are safe enough.
Third, we make the case that it is entirely possible to imagine better streets for Bromley borough, particularly around schools. We present a visualisation showing what some of our roads could look like if they were redesigned to serve the needs of people travelling on foot or by bicycle as well as people travelling by car or bus. In a future report, we will present information about Bromley’s existing 6 school streets, and the amount of money Bromley Council might have available to spend on improvements to roads once Bromley starts enforcing traffic offences (Bromley is the last borough in London to do this).
Local government elections in May 2022 represent a key opportunity for Bromley residents to push for improvements to their neighbourhoods, as all borough councillor seats are up for election. With this in mind, our report also suggests some actions local residents can take now in order to ensure that better streets for Bromley are firmly on the agenda for the May 2022 elections.
Bromley Living Streets is a group of residents in the London Borough of Bromley, campaigning for safer, quieter streets suitable for all people and all modes of travel, particularly walking, cycling and public transport. We have been doing this since August 2018 as volunteers, because we believe it is the right thing to do for the people of Bromley and for the planet. Bromley Living Streets is a local group of Living Streets, the national charity for everyday walking. You can contact us here. We would love to hear from you, particularly in the coming months as we start to talk to political parties about what they intend to commit to if they are successful in the May 2022 elections.
Do you have ideas about the street where you live, a street you frequently travel on, or a street where children go to school?
You might want to consider presenting data and evidence to your councillors, and Bromley Living Streets is willing and able to provide support to you with this. You could monitor air pollution outside your local school or create visualisations of what ‘problem roads’ near you could look like, as we have done here. You could start a local community conversation about this, and Bromley Living Streets would be very happy to talk to you, your school or community group about what can be done locally – we have been doing this for the past 3 years. You can also ask their councillors what action they are taking and why they aren’t creating more school streets.
Let us know, and let your councillors know – otherwise they will approach the elections next May with the idea that all their constituents want things to stay as they are. This is a problem because in fact things will not stay as they are, they will get significantly worse: current trends indicate massive increase in vehicle miles in Bromley borough, the annual traffic by motor vehicles has increased from 800 million to a billion between 2009 and 2019. Unless we support people to get out of their cars and travel on foot or bicycle where possible, the future of Bromley’s roads is traffic jams, and congestion is bad news for anyone travelling by road.
In early June 2021, as the dust settled on the London Mayoral elections, Bromley Conservatives launched their election campaign for May 2022 local elections with a leaflet that claimed that “no schools are exposed to unsafe levels of air pollution.” Over Twitter, Cllr Harmer has clarified that this claim was based on modelled data from the Mayor’s Office and EU standards.
There are a couple of problems with the claim made by Bromley Conservatives. First, it is factually incorrect – because there is no ‘safe’ level of most air pollutants. This is according to the World Health Organisation (WHO):
This quote comes from page 188 of this report. The obvious response to this point is contained within the twitter exchange and WHO quote, above: societies choose a level of risk that is acceptable to them, and enshrine this in law – i.e. what Bromley Conservatives meant to say is that no schools are exposed to illegal levels of air pollution. However…the Bromley Air Quality Action Plan explicitly makes this point about there being no safe level for many air pollutants and states the council commits to target compliance with WHO guidelines in future.
So how do Bromley schools measure up against WHO guidelines?
We have collected data that shows a different story, as every school we visited with an air quality monitor during June and July exceeded WHO guidelines, and even the modelled air quality data used by Bromley Conservatives shows air pollution outside many Bromley schools exceeds WHO guidelines (see the end of this report for more on this). We would love to discuss these findings further with Bromley councillors.
To test the modelled data used by Bromley Conservatives in their leaflet, we collected air quality data around several Bromley schools during the morning peak period. The air quality monitor we used, the portable Flow2 monitor produced by Plume Labs, is estimated to be within 10% of accuracy. The data gives good reason for concern about air pollution outside some Bromley schools. We provide one case study below, and will share data from other schools in the coming weeks.
This image shows air quality on the school run for one of us, at Valley School in Shortlands village, in Bromley Town ward. The two purple peaks on the left of the chart are 8.30am and 9am. Both peaks are at the end of Farnaby road. In between, we walked to the school gate, did the school drop-off, then went to the shops in Shortlands village, then went home. The pollution level subsides in the school playground.
The purple colour of the peaks on the chart indicate air pollution is ‘Very high’ according to the Plume Air Quality Index used in the Flow2 monitor. You can read more about the Plume Index here, but the key point is that the categories in the Index (Low, Moderate, High, Very High, Excessive) are linked to the exposure limits outlined by the World Health Organisation, with each category representing the amount of time it is safe to spend in that level of pollution.
The meaning of ‘Very high’ is that effects will immediately be felt by individuals at risk, and everybody feels the effects of prolonged exposure.
“I wish it was safe for my children to cycle to school. I hate adding to the pollution.”
Parent response to the Bromley Living Streets 2020 School Travel Survey
Air pollution can be reduced significantly with changes to street design and transport infrastructure such as school streets. The cause of the air pollution outside Bromley schools is motor vehicles. Many of these are on the school run. Could we get parents and carers to consider alternatives to driving their children to school? We believe that in many cases the answer is yes. Our September 2020 School Travel Survey strongly supports this, with 5,500 responses with Bromley parents indicating, that they would encourage their children to walk, cycle or scoot to school if they felt it was safe to do so. It is not a question of parents being unwilling to take more sustainable modes, but a lack of adequate street infrastructures to allow children and parents to walk and cycle safely. How could we make this possible?
Here is a visualisation showing what some of our roads could look like if they were redesigned to serve the needs of people travelling on foot or by bicycle as well as people travelling by car or bus.
Some things to note:
This street is safer and more pleasant for people travelling on foot or by bicycle.
This street is also better for people travelling by car or bus because there will be fewer motorised vehicles and so less likelihood of traffic.
Not all roads are suitable for modifications of this kind. Some may be suitable for other kinds of modifications/measures aimed at traffic calming, such as school streets, or a wide range of options such as those detailed in this document: http://content.tfl.gov.uk/achieving-lower-speeds-toolkit.pdf
Redesigning our roads to serve the needs of all road users is not impossible, a pipe dream, or pie in the sky. ‘Modal shift’ – supporting people to use cars less and walk or cycle more – has been successfully achieved in many European cities and some UK areas (such as Waltham Forest).
Redesigning our roads to serve the needs of all road users is government policy. In February 2021, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps stated that half of all urban journeys must be on foot or by bicycle by 2030. You might also want to look at the Gear Change plan, published by the Department for Transport in July 2020.
Below are images of modelled air pollution taken from the London Air website for selected Bromley schools, all of which show air pollution levels higher than World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines. We hope parents at these schools will use these images to ask their councillors what they are doing about this issue.
In each of these images, air pollution levels are above the WHO limit for PM2.5 (10µg m-3) – probably somewhere between 12 and 14. At present, the EU limit for PM2.5 is 25 – but the EU plans to tighten air pollution limits next year, to better align them with upcoming World Health Organisation recommendations.
Here’s how you can produce your own images of data for your street or area: Go to the map on the London Air website and insert a postcode. There’s a drop down below the map to select different pollutants. Then take a screenshot. That’s all you need to do.
