Harrow Council has decided to pause the expansion of its School Streets programme until March 2026, following negative feedback from consultations regarding proposed schemes at Earlsmead Primary School and St Anselm's Catholic Primary School. The council plans to implement a new pre-parking engagement process to ensure residents' views are captured at the earliest stage. This includes developing survey materials, launching interactive online surveys, distributing printed materials, sharing engagement materials with Ward Councillors, hosting drop-in sessions, displaying promotional flyers, using social media and targeted mailshots, and ongoing monitoring and response to public enquiries.
The decision was revealed at the Traffic and Road Safety Advisory Panel meeting on Monday, 7 July 2025, where members discussed the Active and Sustainable Travel and Road Safety Report. According to the report, consultations for specific school streets revealed significant opposition.
Of the 145 responses regarding the school street at Earlsmead Primary School, 60% were in opposition. Concerns raised included the belief that driving conditions would worsen and noise or disturbance would increase with longer journey times. Similarly, at St Anselm's School, 78.2% of the 319 responses were negative. The opposition stemmed from concerns that traffic levels would remain bad or worsen, driving would become harder or less safe, and visiting the school would become more difficult. The council has decided to pause the delivery side of the programme to gather more data and information before proceeding.
Councillor Ameet Jogia MBE, Chair of the Traffic and Road Safety Advisory Panel, sought clarity on the matter, asking, How can it be that you know we didn't pick this up earlier through either feedback from ward councillors or or through community and what will be happening to the additional places for school streets for the borough?
The council responded that despite the negative results, they haven't completely pulled the plug on that.
The plan is to pause the delivery side of the program until March 2026, while gathering more data and information to make a more informed decision. During this pause, the council will be looking at gathering more data and information just to make a a more informed decision
but the specific methods for data collection and evaluation metrics are not detailed in the provided text.
