Council elections 2026: Better Streets for Enfield's key asks

This is a short series of blog posts covering the arguments and current position for when you are talking with neighbours and others in your community.

 

  1. An end to high-traffic neighbourhoods
  2. Traffic-free streets around every school during school run hour
  3. Enfield's Cycle Network: better than you might think, not as good as it could be

More Key Asks to follow - watch this space!

 

1. Better Streets for Enfield are asking for: An end to high-traffic neighbourhoods

Why?

Ask almost anyone what makes a healthy, happy neighbourhood – and very few want a large amount of traffic.

Most people want to live in a neighbourhood with clean air and safe, people-friendly streets for themselves and their families. It has been calculated that in the UK’s towns and cities, 9 in 10 people – across all socio-economic bands – live in neighbourhoods of residential streets, whose roadways were designed primarily for access, not as through-traffic routes.

At the same time, there has been a growing awareness that our neighbourhoods have suffered under the increasing volume and changing habits of motor traffic. Sat-nav has been a boon for in-car navigation. But the downside is that it prioritises only the interests and journey-speed of the driver, not the neighbourhoods through which traffic is often routed.

As through traffic squeezes in from the classified road network, the health and happiness of those communities can be squeezed out – whether that is from the noise and pollutants from vehicles, dangerous speeding, or the sheer volume of vehicles on ‘rat-runs’ that become hostile: unviable for safe cycling, and inhospitable to pedestrians and those with disabilities.

Increasingly there is an acceptance that sustainable urban and suburban neighbourhoods – of the kind that people truly value – cannot be ones abandoned to a demand-led dominance of through-traffic, much of it, in Enfield, emanating from outside the borough.

Individuals, and their choices – if they are drivers – about when and where to drive, must play their own part in enhancing neighbourhoods. But Enfield residents also need purposeful, committed councillors to enact the kinds of policies that (a) work to solve neighbourhoods that still suffer from high traffic and (b) conserve neighbourhoods that have achieved a low-traffic status.

Where are we now?

There is good news, as shown in this map of Enfield. Large sections (shown in violet) of the borough have become low-traffic environments, whose roads provide access but discourage or prevent through-traffic.

low traffic zones in enfield

Figure 1: Low-traffic zones of Enfield, where through-traffic is discouraged/prevented

Some were originally designed as small networks of residential roads that do not allow cut-throughs – as in various types of housing estate.

Some have experienced interventions in earlier decades. In the south-east of Enfield, for example, traffic moving to and from the North Circular Road has long been a problem for local neighbourhoods. Responses included a gate on Seafield Road (Arnos Grove) and a junction closure (with bollards and extended pavement) at Hardwicke Road/A406 (New Southgate), protecting a number of streets.

The best-designed, most comprehensive solutions tackle networks of streets in a holistic way. Enfield’s Quieter Neighbourhoods programme has included some schemes in which ‘modal filters’ (controlled by a mixture of bollards and ANPR cameras) have brought transformative protections to neighbourhoods south of the North Circular Road and north of Broomfield Park – in both cases, following years of resident complaints and active campaigns to repair those high-traffic neighbourhoods.

Nowadays, the best-designed interventions also incentivise residents to think about their own car usage. There is an implicit ‘quid pro quo’: “We will protect your neighbourhood, and please do your bit by considering switching some of your journeys away from the motor car to public transport or other modes.” This is how ending high-traffic neighbourhoods can also contribute to reducing overall motor-traffic journeys in a congested city like London.

As the map also shows, though, there is much left to do. There are Enfield neighbourhoods and streets with known issues that have been unheard; there are potential schemes to tackle the speed and volumes of through-traffic that have not progressed.

Where next? Local Elections in May 2026

Better Streets for Enfield believes in an end to high-traffic neighbourhoods in the borough – because low neighbourhood traffic is fundamental to quality of life in a community.

Between now and 5 May 2026, candidates for office on Enfield Council will be issuing manifestos and canvassing opinion. BSfE encourages residents to ask candidates of all parties:

“How will you…”

And if you already live in a low-traffic environment, will candidates:

2. Better Streets for Enfield are asking for: Traffic-free streets around every school during school run hour

Context

Enfield has over 120 schools.

The council assesses around 50 of these are suitable for a camera-enforced school street and 30 will be in place by the time of the May elections. Check the map here and the list here.

They include the first one at a secondary school in the borough at Enfield County, confirmed in March 2026 after a statutory consultation. Whilst we would always like progress to be faster there has been a genuine shift over time.

There’s also around 50, typically those on main roads, which aren't suitable for a camera-enforced kind of scheme. But that’s not the only option to make a journey on foot, by bike or public transport safer.

That leaves around 20 schools which are viable candidates but don't yet have one, and they could if whoever wins the council in May decides it is a priority.

But 30 out of 52 eligible schools means 22 still waiting. That gap is not an accident of geography. It is the result of political choices about funding, prioritisation and pace. Those choices will continue to be made by whoever wins in May.

What is a School Street?

For anyone new to this: a School Street is a designated walking and cycling zone that operates Monday to Friday during school term time, at drop-off and pick-up times. The aims are to improve safety for students arriving and leaving school, enhance air quality around school areas, and encourage walking, cycling and scooting to school.

In practice, ANPR cameras enforce a closure during school run hours. Residents within the zone can apply for an exemption; so can Blue Badge holders. Everyone else is redirected.

The result, in schools where they're up and running, is a noticeably calmer and safer environment.

The evidence from across London is clear: they work.

A tighter definition

TfL recently tightened its definition. A School Street must now be camera-enforced. Some boroughs had previously used volunteer marshals, but that no longer qualifies.

This raises the bar, and the cost, for each new scheme.

The council is conducting a feasibility exercise on the remaining eligible schools, assessing camera requirements etc before taking proposals forward.

It is up to politicians what the timeline might be.

The schools located on main roads

Here's the harder problem.

Roughly half of Enfield's schools are on or near main roads where a School Street is not feasible.

But new crossings, improved signalling, 20mph zones in neighbouring roads and traffic calming are all possible.

We may not get to ‘traffic free’ but a programme could make it safer and easier in so many places.

That programme, however, sits in a future Local Implementation Plan cycle. That is not this year or next, but the three-year period after that from 28/29.

The next council will decide whether that timetable accelerates or slips further, and it is not just this four year electoral cycle which is in play.

Funding is the constraint — and that's political

A school must be part of TfL’s Travel for Life programme (formerly known as STARS) to start the conversation with the council.

Progress to date has been largely driven by Safer Streets funding from TfL. It can take some time from a school’s initial engagement to a school street becoming reality. Political will can get the ball rolling.

This is where elections matter.

Council administrations make decisions about which schemes to champion with TfL, which to push through scrutiny, and which to leave on the shelf.

Enfield has been doing better than its proportional share of London-wide funding — but that reflects past decisions. Future funding depends on future decisions, made by the people elected in May.

Questions worth putting to your candidates

Whoever comes to your door between now and the elections May, these are reasonable things to ask:

These are not trick questions.

What you can do right now

School Streets are not a niche cycling campaign issue.

They are a question about what kind of borough we want to be — and in May, voters get to say.

Enfield's Cycle Network: better than you might think, not as good as it could be

For an outer London borough, we have more cycle infrastructure than many but we know it can be better.

Half of Enfield's journeys are not made by car. In this and many other respects we are a mid-table outer London borough — and often a little lower.

You can check the results yourself on the Healthy Streets Scorecard. Mid-table is not a disaster. It is also not where any of us should be content to stay.

How we got here

Years ago, Enfield broke the mould with the Mini Holland project and the network has been built out steadily since:

Properly segregated lanes mean less road danger and more people on bikes instead of in cars. That feeds through to better health outcomes, lower NHS costs, less air pollution and quieter streets. But you knew that already, didn't you?

The numbers actually back it up

Two stats worth holding onto:

When the network exists, people use it. That is not an opinion. It is what the data says.

What's planned

A look at the Journeys and Places page shows more is in the pipeline, including:

Some of this is funded. Some of it is waiting on TfL. All of it depends on whether councillors decide to push it through.

Where it falls short

Progress has been real but the network is still not coherent. Too many routes either do not exist yet or do not join up properly. We want bikes to be a natural choice for any journey in Enfield, and not a potentially haphazard experience. And whatever you think of bicycles, the more people who currently drive cars who move to bikes the easier it is for those who genuinely need to use a car.

‘A complete, coherent borough-wide network of cycle lanes’ is one of Better Streets for Enfield's five key asks. What the council has planned would make a big difference. There is always scope for more.

We are delighted to say that Enfield Green Party has backed this pledge. We would like some more replies too. 😉

What we want to see

This is a political choice

TfL provides much of the funding. But it is councillors who decide whether to bid for it, prioritise it and see it through. The reason some boroughs are pulling ahead and others are not is not about money. It is about will.

Ask your candidates what they will do to develop cycling infrastructure in Enfield.

We want to see

Safe streets
with safe space to walk, cycle and cross on busy roads and quiet, low-traffic streets in neighbourhoods.

Healthy streets
where  active travel is the natural choice for short journeys and air is clean enough for children to breathe.

People-friendly streets
with lots of plants and seating, and where motor traffic doesn’t dominate – especially on high streets.

To achieve safe, healthy and people-friendly streets we campaign for 

We are the ‘umbrella’ group campaigning for active travel in Enfield, including walking, wheeling and cycling. Given this we have a strong relationship with the Enfield Cycling Campaign, which is the local branch of the London Cycling Campaign.

What are the local issues that concern you? Please get in touch and let us know! (but also remember we are local volunteers, we will reply as quickly as we can). 

Enfield Living Streets and Enfield Cycling Campaign logos side by side

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