Petition launched today for safer school journeys for all Tower Hamlets children

This week, Tower Hamlets dropped several places down the ‘Healthy Streets Scorecard’, which ranks London boroughs on what they’re doing to reduce road danger, improve air quality and boost active lifestyles.

While other boroughs have spent the last few years delivering affordable and effective street schemes to improve the lives of residents, such as School Streets, 20mph limits and prioritising buses, Tower Hamlets Council prefers to backslide. Their biggest effort since the 2022 election has been to try to remove the only low traffic neighbourhood in the borough, against the wishes of local people, pushing residents into taking legal action that continues later this year.

A Labour council put in the LTN, so Aspire wants to remove it. Our local politicians seem driven to do the opposite of what the other party wants, instead of what’s right for local people. But Tower Hamlets doesn’t need to settle for this race to the bottom. There is more that unites us than divides us in this borough, which is why I am going to stand as an independent councillor candidate in the ward of Bethnal Green West in the May 2026 elections. We need more independent voices within the council.

The waste of time and money by the council is particularly worrying, because some key figures are getting worse. For example, according to the council’s own Road Safety Plan 2025, since 2019, the number of children seriously injured on roads in Tower Hamlets has gone up – even while the overall number of injuries has gone down – and most of these awful incidents happen near schools.

Only 33 of the 99 Tower Hamlets state schools are part of a School Street, where the roads around a school are close to cars at drop-off and pick-up times. So the council has left the other 66 schools to deal with the consequences. This is unjustifiable neglect on the part of the council.

Roads that are safe for children are safe for everyone. School Streets are proven to work and don’t cost much. That’s why I’m launching a petition today calling on the council to invest NOW in School Streets for safer journeys to and from school for all children in Tower Hamlets.

We can do so much better in Tower Hamlets and some changes may only be possible after the May 2026 election, but there’s nothing stopping the council taking some positive steps today. If you live, work or study in Tower Hamlets, please sign my petition today to show the council that we want to see action, not wars or words.