About the project

An Active Neighbourhood is a place where the movement, health and safety of people is prioritised over cars.

It’s simply about creating safe, attractive space for people to spend time chatting or for children to play, typically using planters or bollards on some streets to stop through access. The changes also make it easier to get around on foot and by bike.

By purposefully removing ‘rat running’ through traffic on some routes in your local area, we can reduce any negative impact of this on the local neighbourhood and put residents back at the centre of their communities. This is also about stopping people using residential roads as a cut-through. Residents will still be able to access their homes by car and emergency vehicles will still be able to drive onto the street.

All these things can have positive effects on air pollution, congestion, residents’ health and wellbeing, and safety on residential streets.

Active Neighbourhoods aim to.....

This map shows the project area, which is located between Golborne Road, High Street, East Lancashire Road and Stone Cross Lane North.

Why this area?

This area was selected as an Active Neighbourhood for a number of reasons. These include:

Active Neighbourhoods are best suited to areas where short trips by car can reasonably be converted to safe and enjoyable trips by foot, cycle or wheelchair. This means areas which measure around 1km², as they can be walked across in around 10 minutes and cycled across in around 5 minutes. It’s also preferable for shops, parks and local services to be within walking or cycling distance, making the overall size and location quite important.

As a key aim of Active Neighbourhoods is to reduce rat running, areas must be bound by sizeable roads, such as A and B classified roads. These provide a suitable alternative route for drivers who previously cut through the neighbourhood.

Active Neighbourhoods can also have a greater impact where fewer households have access to a car, so this is taken into account in selecting an area. They can also be brilliant for areas with schools, helping to make active journeys to school a greater possibility for children and families.

The wider context

This Active Neighbourhood is part of a GM-wide programme of 10 schemes (one per district) to be delivered by Arup and Sustrans in 2021, in partnership with councils and TfGM. There is an additional neighbourhood for Bolton and Stockport, bringing the current Greater Manchester total to 17.

Active Neighbourhoods form part of the Bee Network, a 10-year plan for Greater Manchester to deliver the UK’s largest cycling and walking network, eventually spanning 1,800 miles. The focus is on enabling people to leave the car at home for everyday trips to school or to the shops. This will contribute to the one million additional daily sustainable journeys Greater Manchester wants to achieve by 2040, while also having wider benefits to health, congestion and clean air.

Photos by Jessy Earl, John Bewley, Mark Radford, John Bewley, Jonathan Bewley, Healthy streets for Harrow, Colin Hattersley, Sustrans