Dear Cllr Ioannou,

Thank you for your enquiry concerning a School Street for Eversley Primary School.

Enfield Council is committed to the ongoing expansion of School Streets to encourage more active travel amongst young people across the borough. We have just announced the next ten schools who we are working with to deliver more School Streets in Enfield. Whilst we have had discussions with Eversley Primary and hope to introduce a School Street at their school in the future, they have not been selected for the next phase of delivery.

Our original target was to implement two projects a year, which we did in FY19/20.  In FY20/21, as a response to the pandemic, in challenging circumstances for us all we accelerated our work and introduced a further 12 Schools (as trials initially, but in 21/22 made into permanent schemes). In FY22/23 we are maintaining that pace and striving to deliver a further 10 School Streets.

With significant interest from across the Borough, my colleagues have had to make assessments on what is deliverable in the next phase.

A guiding principle in our selection of the next phase has been to follow the recommendations of the Enfield Poverty and Inequality Commission report.

Recommendation 8

The Council should prioritise the East of the Borough for future play streets and school streets so children can play out safely and air quality is improved around schools in hot spots of poor air quality. 

On this basis, the next set of School Streets will typically be located in the East of the Borough – this will help ensure a more balanced geographic spread for our initial 20plus projects.

If it is possible, we would like to deliver even more schools next FY and therefore would wish to continue to work with Eversley Primary to support their continued commitment to STARS.

We do have a record of the all Expressions of Interest forms received from schools and maintain a log of engagement with schools to help inform future decisions. When we commence work on exploring future School Streets we will be in contact with these schools who have expressed interest, including Eversley Primary.

I appreciate that is disappointing that Eversley Primary are not part of the very next set of schools, but please be assured that we remain committed to delivery at this school as part of a future phase.