London’s boroughs to be allocated £80.4 million in funding to continue vital work making streets healthier and safer for all

London’s boroughs play a key role in the planning and delivery of schemes that transform local areas and meet the aims of the Mayor’s Transport Strategy. These include improved public transport, schemes that support the Mayor’s Vision Zero goal of eliminating death and serious injury from the transport network and opportunities for safe and active travel in local communities. Enabling more people to walk, cycle and access public transport is vital to a healthier and more sustainable city for all Londoners.

Transport for London (TfL) and London Councils have today published a Borough Three Year Report, which demonstrates how boroughs have used LIP funding over three years (2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22) to transform local areas, making London’s roads safer and more attractive for people using public transport, walking and cycling.

The report outlines the vital new infrastructure delivered through the funding, including:

• Making public transport more accessible and reliable with 89 new accessible bus stops, more than 110 schemes to increase bus priority or accessibility and 7km new or improved bus lanes
• Making walking and cycling safer through 50km of wider footways, 157km of new or upgraded cycling routes and 74 new pedestrian crossings
• Access to cycling has also improved through nearly 110,000 new on- and off-street cycle parking spaces and training provided to 50,000 adults and just under 135,000 children
• Around 500 School Streets have also been introduced, with almost 25 per cent of primary schools now having a School Street

New data shows that the proportion of Londoners who have cycled in the past year has increased, including increases among people from Black, Asian other minority ethnic groups, who are currently underrepresented in cycling. In the financial year 2022/23, 24 per cent of Londoners reported having cycled in the past year, up from 21 per cent in 2019/20.

Building on this progress, TfL will allocate £80.4 million in funding for London’s boroughs in 2024/25 as they continue their vital work making the capital’s roads safer and more attractive for people using public transport, walking and cycling. This is an increase of 16 per cent from 2023/24, when boroughs were allocated £69 million. Outer London boroughs will continue to receive a higher proportion of funding compared to inner London boroughs.

TfL’s funding for the next financial year (2024/25), will initially see £41m allocated to outer London boroughs and £25m in funding to inner London boroughs. TfL expects to allocate a total of £80.4m in funding.* The funding will help deliver a range of improvements in outer London to help support more active travel and support last year's expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone across London.

The funding will help to deliver a number of new schemes on London's roads, including:

• Proposals for more than 150 new and upgraded pedestrian crossings including dedicated pedestrian signals at busy junctions in Barnet, Kensington & Chelsea and Enfield
• Introduction of 20mph speed limits on roads in Barnet, Brent, Harrow, Redbridge, Waltham Forest Enfield and Richmond
• Junction and corridor improvement schemes that will make London's streets safer, better for active travel and more reliable for buses

Following extensive engagement with the boroughs, bus priority schemes will also be funded, including the delivery of new bus lanes across London. Of the 125 schemes funded, 89 are planned in outer London boroughs. These will help make bus services more reliable and attractive as an alternative to the car and contribute to London’s target of building 25km of new bus lanes by March 2025.

Bus priority schemes receiving funding across London include:

• The introduction of new bus lanes and significantly improved pedestrian facilities at Anerley Hill and Anerley Road in Bromley, subject to the outcome of the on-going public consultation
• The design and development of a new bus gate at Siding Street as part of a multi-modal effort to improve bus journey times and deliver healthy streets in the vicinity of the new UCL Campus and Bobby Moore Academy School in Newham
• Funding for 17 boroughs to develop schemes that deliver enhanced bus priority on Superloop routes
• The continued delivery of major bus priority and other healthy streets improvements at Longbridge Road in Barking and Dagenham, building upon progress already made on this busy bus corridor in 2023/24

TfL will continue to work with the boroughs to expand London’s cycle network at pace, aiming for 70 per cent of Londoners to live within 400m of the network by 2041. Boroughs are central to meeting this goal and this round of funding will enable them to deliver 30km of new routes across London, including Cycleways along Cambridge Park Road in Redbridge, Deptford Church Street in Lewisham, and Cycleways between Hayes and Hillingdon and between New Southgate and Edmonton.

Funding will also deliver more than 2,000 secure residential cycle parking spaces and £2.7 million has been allocated to London boroughs to provide free cycle training sessions to thousands of children and adults.

Penny Rees, TfL's Head of Healthy Streets Investment, said: “Working closely with London’s boroughs is central to achieving a cleaner, greener and healthier London by reducing road danger, improving air quality and encouraging active travel. The Local Implementation Plan programme provides vital, localised investment in bus priority, walking and cycling schemes across the city and this investment will deliver huge benefits. It plays a key role in our commitment to provide a green, healthy and sustainable future for all Londoners and we look forward to working closely with the boroughs to deliver projects that make our city greener, safer and better for everyone.”

The Deputy Mayor for Transport, Seb Dance, said: “It’s fantastic that London boroughs will receive this funding from TfL to continue the vital work they do to keep London’s streets clean, safe and accessible. It is only by working together, with boroughs at a local level and with central Government that we can keep building a better, safer, greener city for all Londoners.”

Cllr Kieron Williams, London Councils’ Executive Member for Climate Change, Transport and Environment, said: “This new round of funding is great news for our city. London boroughs are working hard to make our capital’s streets better, making it easier to walk and cycle, and making London more accessible for those with disabilities. For example, around 500 school streets were recently introduced across the capital meaning almost a quarter of primary schools now have better and safer access at key times.

 “There is much more London boroughs want and need to do and councils across the city have hundreds of shovel ready projects to make our streets even safer. For this, we need further support from government. Through local government and TfL funding we can improve our streets even further and properly address the impacts of climate change.”

As part of this year's LIP funding, TfL has allocated an additional £5m for borough-led cycling schemes in 2024/25 as there are significant plans for new cycling infrastructure on local roads, which has increased the total borough allocation to £80m. This will help boroughs to increase accessibility to cycling on local roads and make their networks safer for cyclists. Confirming this funding means that the boroughs now have certainty of funding and can look to progress their plans as efficiently as possible.