This year’s Summit was held in the lovely Council House building in central Birmingham and was a sellout.

Andy Street, Birmingham Mayor, has a big plan for the city making it better for walking and integrated with the new tram extension and new bus developments. Canal towpaths will be improved too (lots of canals in Birmingham!)

The Mayor of Paris told us of things that we can only dream of such as closing a motorway by the river and giving it over to pedestrians! Magic!

Then Aisha Hannibal, our Engagement Manager, ran a session on local initiatives.

One, in London, is reducing waiting times at light controlled crossings- more to come on this!

And low-traffic neighbourhood’s- more to come on this!

LS Sutton – Area Porosity Analysis

LIVEABLE NEIGHBOURHOODS
We are helping with a bid to create a Liveable Neighbourhood in Sutton.
The bid, to Transport for London, must show that we can create a neighbourhood where walking and cycling are actively promoted, together with low-traffic initiatives. This would create a pleasant environment for all and would be linked to public transport provision.
In Sutton it is hoped that a tram/bus rapid transit system will be built which would form an important part of a liveable neighbourhood.
The route serves central Sutton and the general feeling is that such a neighbourhood would be best near the town centre.
Most shoppers in Sutton walk, cycle and use buses and trains.
It was felt that access to the town centre, from both local residential centres and railway stations could be improved. And the High Street should be entirely pedestrian only.
It was stressed that it is important to keep the public and local councillors on side.
We will be having further meetings to discuss this and any developments will be reported on the website.
Attached here is a porosity map which shows where the main roads and public transport corridors are and areas where is is felt that they may be too porous to traffic taking short cuts.This is used when looking at the possibility of creating a Liveable Neighbourhood.

Look out for the new Carshalton Heritage App  being produced by the London Borough of Sutton. It is a wonderful idea and will get more people walking and using alternatives to the car. Ecolocal and Living Streets helped to produce the original Carshalton Heritage walking maps in 2006 and these were similar to the present proposed App – though the new App will be much more comprehensive and entertaining!

We’ll keep the website updated so that you can see the latest developments and get the App when it goes live.

Carshalton is on the Wandle Trail and the Trail forms an important walking link for Croydon, Sutton, Merton and Wansdworth and hopefully the App will feature the Trail. Both the App and the Trail serve a common aim – to get people walking!

Wandle Fortnight is a community-led celebration of all things Wandle. It runs from September 8th to September 23rd and celebrates the wonderful Wandle Trail which goes through Sutton! More details on: http://www.wandlevalleyforum.org.uk/wandle-fortnight.html#

Mapping the Wandle’s mills
A new self-guided trail map to explore the Wandle’s industrious past has been created by The Building Exploratory with the help of the Wandle Industrial Museum and a team of keen volunteers.
The trail map can be obtained by visiting the Wandle Industrial Museum or downloading a digital version from http://wandlevalleypark.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Mapping-The-Mills-Trail-Map-Final.pdf

Do have a look at this – a wonderful campaign being run by Living Streets and, if you can, get in touch with your prospective Councillors to remind them of the importance of walking and cycling.
Imagine a truly Liveable London. A city where:
It’s enjoyable to walk and cycle your local trips
You can breathe fresh air on streets free from congestion
Children can safely roam, and walk and cycle to school
There are relaxing places to stop, rest and talk to your neighbours

The website link is: https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/what-you-can-do/campaigns/my-liveable-london

London Living Streets now has its own website which went live in March 2018. You can see it at: https://londonlivingstreets.com/about/
It has masses of pictures, video clips etc. And lots of links to local Living Streets groups Including ours! – https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/what-you-can-do/local-groups/sutton) and other organizations.
And helpful information under Useful Stuff.
Anyone can send Comments (see the Box at the foot of relevant pages called Leave a Reply.) And anyone can Contact London Living Streets (go to the Contact page).

Among the exciting features of the website are:
Blog: Emma Griffin has done the first blog – Street Myths and Misconceptions. If you look at nothing else, take a look at this. She tackles a range of common doubts and misunderstandings. Go to https://londonlivingstreets.com/2018/03/09/street-myths-and-misconceptions-2/
News: This is available at https://londonlivingstreets.com/news/

If you have an item of news send it to Contact, for David Harrison’s attention.

Twitter: Susie Morrow (former Living Streets Trustee) has been running the London Living Streets tweeting for some time. The most recent tweets appear on every page of the Website. You can also tweet to London Living Streets yourself at https://twitter.com/LDN_LS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Flondonlivingstreets.com%2F

Until Google gets on top of it, it is necessary to put in the full URL — https://londonlivingstreets.com/about/
Spread the word to anyone you know who might be interested in anything to do with transforming London’s streets in the interests of people on foot. We have a huge outreach task in London Living Streets. This website can play a big part in this work.

A new map has been published by the Wandle Valley Regional Park Trust. It can be accessed on its website – http://wandlevalleypark.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Wandle-Trail-Map-Interactive.pdf.

We have been actively involved with the Sutton section of this lovely walk and important transport link, enabling one to walk to Morden in 45min and to Merton Abbey Mills in 55min – so much nice than using other forms of transport!