Newcastle Upon Tyne School Streets Evaluation
Evaluation completed August 2024
Newcastle School Streets Final Report (PDF: 56 pages)
Newcastle School Streets animation designed to help children start a conversation with their care givers to discuss ways to get to school without using a car.
From questions to cartoon: sharing research with young voices in Newcastle
Dr Yvanna Todorova discusses the decision to create an animation to help share the findings from the evaluation.
Todorova Y, and others. Implementing a novel signage-only School Streets Approach: Facilitators, barriers and perceived outcomes. Journal of Transport & Health 2025; 42. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2025.102049
What does the evaluation mean for Local Government?
School Streets is a traffic restriction scheme aimed at reducing traffic outside schools during drop off and pick up times. Newcastle City Council introduced a unique, signage-only, School Streets initiative at four primary schools in the city to improve air quality around schools, as well as aiming to increase active travel. The Council was responsible for implementation and engagement with residents. Sustrans (a national charity and advocacy organisation for active travel) was responsible for carrying out all engagement with the school community. The aim of this evaluation was to understand how Newcastle School Streets has been implemented and the factors affecting implementation. Our results suggest that School Streets was generally supported by councillors, Newcastle City Council employees, school leadership, pupils, parents and residents. Better communication between all stakeholders was needed to smooth the implementation process. Some perceived positive effects on the local environment were reported by the parents and residents but there is little empirical evidence to suggest changes in mode of travel. Between the school leadership, pupils, parents, and residents, enforcement was viewed as the most important action from the Local Authority to encourage behaviour change. More post implementation support was needed by the schools to help sustain compliance. To better understand the impact of School Streets, it is strongly recommended that an evaluation protocol be set during the planning stage of the programme to ensure adequate data is collected.
Impact As a result of the evaluation, the local authority integrated the recommendations of the report into their planning of more School Streets. A peer-reviewed journal article of the evaluation has been published and the results presented at a scientific conference in Newcastle.
What does the evaluation mean for the Public?
The local and school community perceived traffic outside schools as unsafe prior to School Streets, creating a desire for increased traffic provision to support child safety. The decision to implement School Streets was led by Newcastle City Council Cabinet members to address high levels of air pollution around schools. School Streets was supported by councillors and the local community to address traffic and child safety concerns. Our evaluation found that whilst pupils and their parents/carers, school staff and residents supported the idea of the School Streets, it was agreed across these groups that enforcement and interconnected physical infrastructure for active travel (such as walkways, crossings, and cycle lanes) were deemed essential for sustainability. The novel signage-only approach meant parent buy-in and compliance to the scheme determined its success. Groups of non-compliant families tended to be identified at each school, making the area more unsafe for children who are expecting adults to comply. Parents and residents agreed that prioritising engagement activities with “repeat offenders” and bad driving behaviour had potential to improve safety in the area.
Impact As a result of the evaluation, mini reports were shared with each of the participating schools detailing school specific results. A child-friendly animation has been produced to engage children with the research. There has been a blog post to provide advice to other research teams on how they could design a video of their own.
How are the public involved in the evaluation?
The success of the School Streets scheme is dependent on achieving high level engagement with parents and children at the schools and the surrounding local community to promote the scheme and ensure everyone is aware, bought into the scheme and thus obeys the signage. Three stakeholder workshops were held early in the course of the evaluation which included service users, partner organisations and members of our public advisory group. These workshops provided the direction for the evaluation - to understand the key factors (facilitators and barriers) underlying the successful implementation of School Streets, how to maximise stakeholder engagement, which features of the scheme are perceived as successful in influencing and sustaining active travel behaviour, and what role context may play. A member of our public advisory group attended all research group meetings, having helped in the development of data collection tools, and are playing a key role in the dissemination of our findings. Parents and residents surveys have all been captured in our data analysis, alongside school level interviews/focus groups with headteachers, senior leaders, pupils and parents/carers.
Lay summary of research
The School Streets scheme restrict traffic access to streets around schools at busy pick-up and drop-off times. The scheme aims to keep pupils safe from traffic, reduce air pollution and encourage forms of active travel such as walking and cycling. Newcastle City Council has worked with Sustrans (a national charity and advocacy organisation for active travel), local schools and the community to implement four schemes across the city.
The Newcastle schemes employ a signage-only model which means road signs are placed at locations where the restrictions start and end. There are no physical barriers preventing vehicles from accessing streets. Access for residents, emergency vehicles, deliveries and others, such as essential services remains unaffected during the restriction periods.
The current evaluation captures the views of the local authority, Sustrans, schools, parents and the local community on the implementation and outcomes of the School Streets schemes in Newcastle Upon Tyne.
The evaluation showed that engagement is central to the success of Newcastle School Streets signage-only scheme. Residents, parents, and pupils felt that initial engagement was good, although lead-in time for engagement varied between schools. Communication across the facilitators was found to be disconnected which resulted in the disjointed timelines and mismatched expectations, particularly around the long-term plan for maintaining the scheme.
The signage-only design of the scheme kept cost and resource demand low, but its impact was not obvious. There was insufficient data to determine any changes in traffic volume and mode of travel. Potential long term health impacts were identified only if a shift to walking to school could be sustained. Parents and residents reported some initial perceived improvements in the environment surrounding the school with fewer cars around; however, compliance decreased over time. There was a strong desire from parents, pupils, school leadership, and resident for more enforcement officers to assist in the long-term success of the scheme. The lack of physical infrastructure to prevent cars from driving down a School Street is likely to have affected the impact of the School Streets.
Local Government / Partner(s)
Newcastle City Council
Sustrans
PHIRST Light Research Team
Loughborough University: Dr Jo Barnes, Dr Yvanna Todorova
Public advisory group members: Marie McDevitt, Beauty Tshuma
*All PHIRST Light team members contribute to every evaluation.